Fata Viam Invenient
by Semper Caritas
Summary: The Fates are strange. What was once fated to be can be completely changed, given the correct circumstances. And so what was to be will be, with slight modifications along the way. There is one thing, however, that the fates cannot undo, and that is the bonds that were never meant to be broken. Next Generation.
1. Prologue: Family Origins

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters are the intellectual property of JK Rowling. I played absolutely no part in their creation nor do I claim to own them or the book series they appear in. **

**(However, the characters not found in the books that you will read about in here are indeed mine.)**

* * *

_Family Origins_

The Valentine family had not been intrigued by tales of the New World when it was first discovered. Oswyn Valentine thought the idea of leaving his castle behind to go start a new life in a land infested with savage natives and a batch of brand new diseases was absurd. His wife, Parnell Valentine (née Urquart), agreed with his sentiment for she did not treasure the idea of giving up her life of comfort for one of hardship. It was their foolhardy youngest son, Ambrose Gerard Valentine, who decided to travel to that far off land with his Spanish wife, Constanza Paxaraso de Loaysa. He did not lack money or title in their world, but still had a longing for a change to his lifestyle. What better way than to set off for a distant land?

It was during the early 1600s that Ambrose and Constanza left for the New World, traveling by ship with muggles and a few other witches and wizards. It was a terrible trip. Not enough food had been stowed away, so they all had to eat very little portions, several passengers died, and the ship smelled of perpetual filth and death. The two shared a look of great relief when they first saw sight of land. There they would build a grand home, they were sure. Their offspring would be born and raised in this new land.

They did build themselves a home in the New World, though they had searched for a proper location for weeks before finding one. Constanza had insisted that be far away from muggles and the savages that lived in the New World, and so they had a home many miles from any town, protected by wards and concealed with multiple charms so that no one could see it or even come near the house. They started a farm, Ambrose using spells to make the plants grow faster than normal and to be able to grow food that would not normally have been grown during a certain season or in the area. Though he already had family money – his parents had very generously bestowed to him heaps of muggle money before he left – he earned more by selling his crops. He did not need workers or want to have some muggle running about his home, but he did pay passage for people who became his servants. They would work for him for seven years, and then he'd release them.

Constanza gave birth to their first child in 1610, a son they named Gerard Francis Valentine. In 1612, she bore a daughter, Agnes Lucia Valentine, and another son in 1615 named Edmund Gregor Valentine. Gerard married a witch from a fellow pure-blood family named Sybil Rachel Selwyn. The Selwyns still had family back in England, like the Valentines. Sybil and Gerard had two daughters and no sons, effectively ending the Valentine line in that branch. Agnes married the Selwyn's youngest son, Geoffrey Leonard Selwyn; the two had one son. It was Edmund, who married Agacia Christabella Girouard (a French pure-blood), that continued the family line with by having two sons, Cyriack Erasmus (1634) and Gedian Jevon (1636). He also had three daughters – Eulalia Godeve (1637), Frieda Esther (1640), and Mallyn Robina (1643).

Cyriack and his wife, Sabine Fryth, had only one son, Ambrose Erasmus Valentine (1655). His brother Gedian had three sons, two who died in childhood and one that came down with dragonpox as a young adult and died without issue. Ambrose then had two sons, Mathias Oswyn (1678) and Aeneas Ranulf (1681), and a daughter, Christabella Anstis (1684). Aeneas did not marry and died young, but Mathias married Audriell Dorothea Carrow, and together they had Eamon Bertran (1710). Only one son was born for several generations following that of Mathias, Aeneas and Christabella. Eamon married Cicelie Rowle and they had Fabian Jonas (1738). Fabian married Margerie Prince and had Gervase Mungo (1768). Gervase married Lettice Montagu and had Gerard Jevon (1799). Gerard married Petronella Slughorn and had Erasmus Ranald (1839). Erasmus married Isobel Lestrange and had Silas Ezekial (1865). Silas married Aveline Fawley and had Zachei Ansell (1892). Zachei married Beatrix Rosier and had Oswyn Jasper (1927). Oswyn married Elsabeth Selwyn and had Thane Oswyn (1950).

Thane Oswyn Valentine attended Bythovion School of Sorcery, which was co-founded by his sixth great-grandfather, Eamon Bertran Valentine, and a distant cousin, Gareth Ewan Girouard. He excelled in Alchemy and Dark Arts classes. It was in his seventh year at the yearly inter-school dance held by Salem Witches' Institute that he met Asterope Black, a British-born witch that told him her father said Hogwarts had become a disgrace of an institution, as it allowed muggleborns and half-breeds to enter. He knew about her before he met her, of course. The Blacks were notorious pure-blood extremists; his mother's family had married into the Black family several times. He would do well to marry a witch from such a respectable, pure-blood family, his mother had told him many times.

And they were married, he and Asterope, six months after the dance. It was a marriage arranged in part by their parents and because Asterope had implored her mother – her father had died when she was nine, which had been a big push for her mother to move to the states – to let her marry the handsome Thane rather than one of those Nott or Goyle boys she'd had in mind. She obliged her wishes, remembering that her own family descended from the Valentines when their surname was still Valentinus.

The young couple had their first son, Nigellus Oswyn (1969) a year into the marriage. He was Asterope's favorite son, bearing the strikingly good looks of the Black family, whereas her other two sons resembled the Valentine males. It was unfortunate that he died while fighting alongside Voldemort in Britain during the first Wizarding War of the twentieth century. Though she was distraught over his death (not that Thane wasn't as well), she still had two more sons, Caelum Regulus (1971) and Phoenix Ambrose (1974).

Caelum married Helena Rowle, a girl from a respectable pure-blood family. They had two children together born late in their marriage, Corvus Thane (2001) and Lacerta Isobel (2006). Caelum was a good pure-blood wizard and worked for the United States Wizarding Government as one of the judges on the Supreme Court. His daughter looked remarkably like her grandmother, but had a difficult time earning the woman's love when she had to constantly compete against her cousin.

Phoenix was wed to Lyra Elsabeth Casadavade, a French American witch who attended Beauxbaton's Academy of Magic. The Casadavade family was of noble, pure-blood origin, though Asterope had heard tell that in recent years there was question as to whether that was still true. The rumor was that Lyra's father, Alexandre Casadavade, was the offspring of a pure-blood wizard and magical creature. There was no knowing whether the rumor was true or not unless the Casadavade family owned up to it, which would result in shame upon their name. This was why Asterope was so opposed to the union of her youngest son and Lyra Casadavade. She had begrudgingly allowed them to marry once her husband went above her head and gave them permission, though she sat unhappily throughout their wedding ceremony.

In 1992, they had their first child, a daughter named Cassiopeia Phillippa Valentine. Though Asterope admonished the two for having a child so soon into their marriage and at a young age, she could not help but feel a slight affection for the giggling child her husband would often hold. The very next year, they had Ronan Gerard Valentine (1993), Asterope and Thane's first grandson. This time Asterope did not berate the two parents, instead criticizing her older son and daughter-in-law for not yet having children while rocking the baby lovingly in her arms. Three years later, Phoenix and Lyra had another son, Andreus Oswyn Valentine (1996), who was a rather rowdy child that liked to run around outside and dirty his clothing. There was also Samuel Alexander Valentine (1996), Andreus' twin, the child that had died far too young. Tristan Sirius Valentine (2003) was born two years after his uncle and aunt had their first child, Corvus. The two boys, though separated by two years, played together often as children and had the closet bond among Thane and Asterope's grandchildren.

It was with an unexpected surprise that Lyra and Phoenix had another child after Tristan, born in the same year (though months later) as Caelum and Helena's only daughter. Nyssa Christabella Valentine was born on a Saturday, ill and likely to die before she reached one month of life. The grandparents went to see the child, but did not pay much mind to the baby, thinking that she would soon die. When the baby lived past her first month, there was hope, and when she was six months they knew all would be well. Nyssa (2006) became Asterope's favorite granddaughter, though the child was unlike her other grandchildren. Rebellious and curious, it was refreshing to her, and she indulged the girl's every whim when possible. But she did punish Nyssa those many times Lacerta had come running to tell her that she was playing with muggle children. That was the one fault she found with her favorite granddaughter, her nature to see those beneath her as equals.

The future that lay ahead of the old and noble pure-blood Valentine family was fraught with blood supremacy, war, death, despair, and ruin. For centuries the family had been untouched by such terror as was to befall them. And Nyssa Christabella Valentine was at the center of it all.


	2. Artemas and The Letter

_Artemas and The Letter_

Nyssa awoke, tears streaming from her eyes. She had just had a very bad dream, one in which her mother and father died. The man that had killed them was none other than her own uncle – Caelum Valentine.

He, her uncle Caelum, was her daddy's older brother. Stern, strict, arrogant, and callous; her uncle was not a delight to be around. That was not to mention his shoulder-length raven black locks, always slicked back, piercing misty blue eyes, sharp nose, and pointed chin. Those features all together gave him an aura of foreboding. Though he was his parents eldest son, he was not their favorite, and perhaps, Nyssa thought, that had something to do with his cruel disposition.

It had been a very odd dream though. She was much younger than her current age in it. And she had never met her godparents in the dream, which was strange considering she currently saw each at least once a year. Such an odd dream; the thought would not leave her. Wiping the leftover tears from her cheeks, she sat up, her eyes feeling the sting of the bright sunlight streaming in from the window to the left of her. Babbitty must have slipped in earlier, while Nyssa was in the process of having a nightmare, and drawn the curtains back. She had half a mind to summon the house elf and berate him, but remembering very clearly how Babbitty winced when her daddy, mom, oldest brother, and sister did it, thought that she would let it slide as it was not really a big deal and Babbitty had meant her no harm by opening the curtains.

Her mom's voice soon greeted her from somewhere in the hallway, "Nyssa! Tristan! It's time to greet the day, you sleepyheads!"

After letting out a long yawn and stretching her arms widely above her head, she rolled off the bed and onto the floor. The floor was warm, she noted; enchanted by her mom, of course. This was one reason she was thankful to have been born into a wizarding family. Had she been a muggle, she suspected, the floor would not have a warming charm and be quite cold in the morning times – or all times.

Her eyes, still adjusting to being open after eight to nine hours of sleep, drowsily stared at the outfit hanging on the backside of her door. It was a short azure frock with intricate little butterfly and flower embroidered towards the bottom of the skirt, white stockings with little ruffles at the edges meant to go with the dress thrown on top over the hanger. White buckle shoes lay beneath, pushed up against the door. She supposed it was her mom's pick for the day, her sister would have chosen something much longer and stiff.

She slipped into the stockings, then the short frock, and finally squeezed on the shoes; they were a bit tight, eliciting a grin from Nyssa at the thought that she was getting taller. That definitely meant she was growing up. Her brothers and cousins wouldn't be able to call her a 'little girl' any longer and exclude her from their activities. After running a comb through her hair, she put on a light blue headband that had a little white rose attached. Observing herself in the large standing mirror opposite her bed, she thought to herself that she looked quite the same as she had at the age of ten, though she felt more grown up inside.

With a quick smile at her reflection, she opened the door to her bedroom and bounded into the hallway. Down the stairs she went, her shoes making a CLICK, CLACK sound as she did, which she found delight in and so gave a few extra taps on the bottom step before leaping off. She headed to the living area where she was sure to find assorted family members. It was her eleven birthday today and was to be celebrated with great glee.

"There's the birthday girl," the voice of her brother, Andreus was the first to greet her as she entered the room. Andreus was rather tall, had dark black hair, just like their mother, and light blue eyes. He was someone who could get along with almost anyone; friendly, outgoing, humorous, and unconditionally loving towards those important to him. He was probably her favorite brother, though she'd never say this aloud, least Tristan or Ronan overhear and annoy her for it.

Grinning from ear to ear, she ran up to him, her shoes still making the delightful sound that they did on the stairs. "What did you get me?"

Andreus smirked, placing a finger to his lips. "It's a secret, my dear sister." When she made a face, he added, "Later." He cupped his hands around her face once she smiled again, giving her a small peck on her forehead. "Happy eleventh birthday, Nyssa."

"Happy birthday, dear sister," a sickeningly sweet voice said tauntingly. Nyssa turned her head to greet her sister, Cassiopeia or Cassia, as she called her, while Andreus narrowed his eyes at his other sister. Cassia was tall, with a frame so small that her bones were easily visible. She had black hair as well, like Andreus, but much less luxurious in Nyssa's opinion. Her dull brown eyes stared directly into Nyssa's amber ones, like a predator looking for weakness in its prey. With a slow stride, she came closer to Nyssa and Andreus, placing one small palm on top of Nyssa's head. "I do hope you try not to do anything to upset grandmother this year."

Nyssa rolled her eyes at this. Her sister was referring to last year, when she had asked Babbitty to eat her birthday cake at the table with them. It had not been something so very wrong, she thought, but her grandmother did not agree. She had ordered Babbitty away, berated her mom and daddy for not teaching her how to properly treat inferior creatures, and then proceeded to go on a long rant about the superiority of wizards, which degenerated into a heated speech about pureblood. Later she found out that Babbitty had punished himself by shutting his ears in the cabinet doors and decided then that she would never again ask him to eat at the same table or even in the same room.

Once Cassia removed her palm, Nyssa immediately headed towards the dining room, hoping to avoid a long conversation with said sister about how very unwell Nyssa fit into the family. Andreus helped her by commenting on Cassia's newest dress robes, which was something the witch loved to talk about more than she loved picking on her younger sister.

* * *

They had arrived at her grandparent's house at 7:00 PM precisely. Tristan was in a foul mood, because Cassia's son Ewan, who was only three, had broken his broomstick. Despite promises from his parents that they would buy him a newer, better one the next day, he still huffed and crossed his arms. It was only when their grandfather had accidently set aflame the back of Cassia's shirt that he forgot all about the broken the broom and joined in the merriment. Nyssa was proud to say that she did not incite her grandmother in any manner this year.

Nyssa received four new dress robes from her grandmother, Wizards: The History – she did so love history – from her grandfather, hair accessories from Cassia and her husband Caius, sweets from Tristan, boring books on magical law from her oldest brother Ronan and his wife Maura, several pairs of shoes from her Aunt Helena, Uncle Caelum, and their children, an enchanted pocket mirror from her uncle Cain, money and a weird glowing bracelet from her maternal grandparents, and a new broom from her parents. She did love flying, though only for recreational fun; Bludgeon was not a game she was interested in playing in the slightest.

It finally fell upon Andreus to hand out his gift, which Nyssa was sure would be the best. With all eyes on him, he suddenly jumped up from his seat in the corner of the room from which he'd been watching everyone else present their gifts to his sister, and ran out of the room. They all looked at each other, some raising quizzical eyebrows as they heard a door open. Heavy footsteps soon followed, a door now closing, and Andreus was soon grinning at them all again, a large box covering his chest and lower waist.

Nyssa ran up to him, placing her ear to the box in an attempt to decipher what might be inside. Something bumped against the side of the box, a strange muffled sound coming from inside. Whatever it was, it was alive.

Andreus sat the box on the floor, calling Ronan, who was now smiling, over to him. He, Ronan, obviously knew what was in the box as well. Ronan had dark brown hair and striking blue eyes, a rounded chin and high cheekbones. He was boastful, pompous, and overly confident in himself, but also rather gentle and kind towards his younger siblings. Out of all the siblings, he was the one that looked most like their father, except for his eyes, which he'd inherited from his mother.

The two brothers pointed their wands at either side of the box, peeling the sides away one by one. After the side facing her had fallen to the floor, Nyssa could clearly see the creature. It was a beautiful white-furred fox, still a baby, from its size. It had black ears, black fur above its eyes giving the impression that the animal had eyebrows, and little silver specks of hair around its nose. The baby fox ran the short distance to her, placing its paws on her knees and staring up with its pretty grey eyes.

Nyssa reached down and picked up the fox, holding it the same as she would a puppy or kitten, petting the fox's back softly. She had never had a pet before, though all her siblings had. Ronan, Tristan, and Andreus all had an owl, while Cassia had a cat. Now she had a pet too, one that was rather unique compared to her siblings' pets. Now that she thought of it, she remembered having mentioned that she wanted an unusual pet to Andreus before. He had not forgotten, apparently.

"That's a Russian silver fox, isn't it?" It was Tristan asking this, standing beside Nyssa now and petting the fox's head. "They're real expensive."

"Are they dangerous?" asked Cassia, holding back Ewan, who looked as if he desperately wanted to hold the fox.

"Of course not," replied Andreus, waving off Cassia's anxiety. "I wouldn't give my baby sister a dangerous pet." He winked at Nyssa, who was having trouble toning down her bursting smile at the moment. This fox was by far her favorite birthday gift. "They're loyal and friendly, with a bit of an independent streak. You two match perfectly."

Nyssa agreed with a head nod.

"What are you going to name him? Her?" Tristan looked to Andreus for him to confirm the gender.

"Him."

"Not something like Rabbitty, I hope," was Ronan's input, to which he received a jab in the side from Andreus.

"She can name him what she likes," Andreus said, though he too was hoping that his sister would not name the fox Rabbitty. When their parents had allowed her to name their house elf, it ended up being Babbitty. That was embarrassing, he admitted, to say, especially in front of your friends. He cringed at the memory of calling for the house elf when a bunch of his friends had come around during the winter holidays of his fifth year and they'd all laughed; they made fun of him for weeks afterwards.

Ronan put a hand to his side, rubbing it, "That hurt, you know."

Nyssa tilted her head back ignoring the antics of her brothers, looking up at the ceiling for a millisecond, looked back down at the fox and declared, "Artemas!"

"That's a boring name. You should call him Finn," Tristan grumbled.

"No, he's Artemas. Right, Artemas?" The fox let out a short yawn, which Nyssa took as meaning he approved of her choice of name.

"Artemas is good," Andreus said approvingly, now picking up the pieces of cardboard box before his grandmother said something about them or called in one of her house elves to take care of it.

"Better than Rabbitty," agreed Ronan, securing his wand on a holster around his waist.

"I think he's lovely, little Artemas. Right, Phoenix?" Lyra, Nyssa's mom, looked to her husband to see his reaction on the pet name.

He nodded back at her, a small smile on his face, "It's a good name." After which the rest of the family agreed that the name was a good choice, and then started several different discussions, breaking up into groups.

Nyssa's maternal and paternal grandparents were talking about a recent proposed law that would permit half-breeds to adopt wizard children, with Ronan chiming in that he was working his hardest to do away with such an absurd proposition (his wife tagged along behind him). Her mom and daddy were talking to her Uncle Cain, her mom's brother, and her Uncle Caelum and Aunt Helena about the upcoming school year. Tristan was engaged in a conversation with their cousins Lacerta and Corvus; Andreus with their cousins Leon and Nolan; and Nyssa was carefully watching her nephews Ewan and Leif while they handled Artemas.

It was during this time that an owl flew in through the fireplace, stirring up ashes, issuing shouts from her grandmother over the new mess on the floor. It flew strait at Nyssa, waiting for her to take the white envelope from its claws. She did, curious as to who was sending it. Perhaps it was her godmother of godfather, both had been absent for her birthday this year and said that they would meet her at a later time with their gifts.

She turned the letter over in her hands as the owl flew back into the fireplace and up the chimney, her grandmother shouting after it. In a very pretty, cursive writing in a bold red color, the front of the letter read: Ms. N. Valentine, The Living Area, 1 Fae Hollow, Winterwood, United States of America. She turned around to look at her relatives, wondering which one had written this, if any of them had down it. How else could the letter have been addressed to her so specifically?

Turning it over again, she noticed a blue wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.

"Who's it from?" asked Leif, trying to read the cursive writing on the front of the letter.

"I don't know," Nyssa replied, slowly opening the letter. Unfolding it, she gasped as she read the words on the parchment.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmistress: Pomona Sprout

(_Order of Merlin First Class, Master Herbologist, Member, International Confed. of Wiza_rds)

Dear Ms. Valentine,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term beings on 1 September. We await your owl no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Neville Longbottom

Deputy Headmaster

"I was accepted!" The shout of joy from Nyssa brought Andreus to her side.

His eyes quickly scanned the parchment in her hands. By the time he had finished, his eyes were wide. "Hogwarts? How did you end up getting accepted to Hogwarts?"

Shouts of "What?" and "Hogwarts?" followed from different family members, both her daddy and mom coming forward to view the letter themselves. Nyssa was overwhelmed; she gotten a lovely, unique pet and now she had been accepted into Hogwarts. Her eleventh birthday had definitely turned into a wonderful day.

"But – how?" Her daddy asked, his mouth opening and closing as he re-read the letter.

"Uncle Keenan, of course."

"Keenan?" It was her mother this time, mouth opening and closing in astonishment. "He got you into to Hogwarts?"

"Your godfather?" This was her grandmother, momentarily looking up from scrutinizing one of her house elves, Pip, as he cleaned the floor.

"I told him I wanted to go there. He was delighted, because he went there too. It had to be him. How else could I have gotten in, not being British?"

"Yes, I suppose it must have been Keenan, then. He _does_ work at the Ministry over there," her mom mumbled thoughtfully, still trying to process the idea of her youngest child being accepted at a school so very far away. She had expected Nyssa to go to Salem Witches' Institute, like her grandmother and girl cousins. Possibly even Beauxbaton's Academy of Magic, like herself.

"He's on the Hogwarts Board of Governors, isn't he?" Phoenix had stopped looking dumbstruck and was now thinking along the same lines as Lyra.

"Yes," Lyra replied shortly.

"Off to Scotland, huh?" Corvus, much kinder than his sister Lacerta, sent a smile to Nyssa. He had fair hair, like his mother, but his father's striking blue eyes and sharp features. Currently, he was entering his sixth year at Bythovion School of Sorcery, which was the school all the men in the family had been to or were going to (Tristan was going into his fourth year), aside from her mom's dad, who went to the Durmstrang Institute. "Make the family proud, won't you?"

"Yes," chimed in Leon, "show the Brits that the Americans are more than up to snuff in wizarding talent."

"Your great-grandfather, Regulus Black, went to Hogwarts. He was in Slytherin, all the family have been," her grandmother commented dryly.

A little 'Aha' came from her mom's mom, who then proceeded to say, "I remember. My grandfather went to Hogwarts, described it with a peculiar fondness. He was in Hufflepuff."

A derisive noise came from her grandmother, which did not go unnoticed by her granny. To differentiate between the two, she called her father's mother grandmother and her mother's mother granny. Granny sounded much more endearing and familiar, while grandmother was more stiff and distant. The way the words sounded was the perfect description for her relationship with that particular grandparent. Both of her grandfathers – one was Papa and the other Grandfather – on the other hand, were equally loved by their granddaughter and treated her with the love and affection her grandmother did not.

There was a short time of congratulations from different family members to Nyssa, though a few voiced their displeasure at her choice of school. Her Aunt Helena said that she had hoped Nyssa would be going to the Salem Witches' Institute along with Lacerta; the two girls would have been in the same year of school. Nyssa did not mention that she was actually very happy that she did not have to spend an entire school year in a dorm with her cousin, who, she was sure, felt the same. They had been unsure whether Lacerta would enter the school at all, as she had not shown any accidental magic whatsoever, even after the letter of acceptance had arrived. This had only made the girl more disagreeable in recent months.

After goodbyes had been said, Nyssa (toting Artemas), Tristan, Lyra, and Phoenix all went home, with Andreus promising to stop by the next day and take Nyssa to Ceserova Market to pick up a few of the items off the list of supplies for Hogwarts. Once home, Nyssa immediately ran to the writing desk in the living area, laid out a piece of parchment and dipped a quill in some ink.

Dear Deputy Headmaster Longbottom,

I accept admission to Hogwarts. Thank you so very much for admitting me. I will definitely be on the train on September 1st.

Love Always,

Nyssa Valentine.

It was short, but Nyssa felt it was sufficient. She only needed to say that she was going, after all. After addressing the envelope, sealed it with her daddy's seal – it had a shield with three dragons on it in the middle (the Valentine family crest) – and sent it off with the family owl, Juniper. She went back to the writing desk immediately, rushing past Tristan, who was now eating a piece of banana bread. Next she sent letters to her godmother and godfather, informing both that she was going to Hogwarts and adding in an extra thank you to her godfather for being the one to get her admitted.

* * *

**And here we are! The very first chapter of this probably very long fic. **

**Please review and tell me your thoughts! **


	3. Dragon Heartstring

_Dragon Heartstring_**  
**

Diagon Alley was bustling with wizards and witches going to and fro, several with young children. A few unfortunate older children were being accompanied by their mothers as they shopped for school supplies, looking longingly at the ones who were trusted enough by their parents to do it on their own.

The cobblestone street she walked on, flanked on either side by her mom, daddy, and Uncle Keenan – her godfather – stirred up nostalgia in her. The street in Ceserova Market had been cobble-stoned as well until recently (it was now cement stones) and she missed the uneven, multicolor stones. When she was much younger and her feet were rather small, she would hop from stone to stone, avoiding the cracks in between. It had started when she overheard some muggle children saying 'step on a crack, break your mother's back'. She had not wanted to break her mother's back, and so started to avoid cracks until Ronan found out her reason for doing so and swiftly informed her that what the children had said was not true.

They were currently headed to Gringotts, the wizarding bank run by goblins, as Uncle Keenan had told her. They were quite nasty, he said, the goblins. It was partway down the alley and Nyssa noticed a sign nearby to the right that was labeled 'Knockturn Alley'. The bank was a snow-white multi-storied marble building; white stairs leading up to large bronze doors. Two goblins stood on both sides of the door, wearing gold and red uniforms, and staring contemptuously at the many wizards and witches scurrying through the alley.

After entering the bronze doors, there was another set of silver doors Nyssa and her party had to go through before reaching a huge marble hall. Long counters stretched from end to the other. At the counters, every two feet or so, sat a goblin waiting to be of service. All of the goblins had snarky expressions, eyeing the witches and wizards that approached them scornfully.

Keenan led the way for the group, approaching a goblin at the left counter halfway down the vast hall. "Hello, there," he greeted, smiling.

The goblin frowned in return and asked quite bluntly, "What services do you require today?"

Phoenix stepped forward, withdrawing a note from his pocket, glanced at it, then looked back up, "We need to access Vault 821."

This time the goblin raised a brow, narrowed his eyes and leaned forward towards Phoenix. "That is the vault of Regulus Black. It has not been opened for decades. Do you have identification?"

Phoenix, as if expecting this response, had already withdrawn another piece of paper. Staring hard, Nyssa thought that it looked like a family tree, though she couldn't be sure because the goblin had quickly snatched it up, turning it round and round in an attempt to see if it was false.

"I see, yes, follow me." He handed the paper back to Phoenix, who stuffed it back into the inside of his robes, picked up a lantern beneath the desk, opened a door in the counter to allow the four entrance, and headed to a door on the wall. The door was rusted and had several locks that the goblin swiftly did away with. They were all seated in a cart that Nyssa thought resembled those in muggle mines and off they went, sloping up and down, turning sharply left or right. It was like a very long maze, going by extraordinarily fast. Nyssa suspected that no one but the goblins would ever be able to remember the paths to each vault.

"Mom, are you alright?" She had noticed that her mom had one hand to her forehead and the other was clutching her belly.

Lyra looked at her daughter, shook her head, and closed her eyes tightly. This was the second time now that she'd been in one of these carts; the first was when she went with Keenan to his vault. Keenan's had been closer to the surface and the ride had been short, yet she'd still gotten sick. She knew that she'd be very ill after going down and then back up again, considering this vault was much deeper.

After a while, the cart stopped, and Nyssa was staring at a dragon. The dragon had pearly scales and glittering multi-colored eyes with no pupils; it could have been called pretty were it not a fire-breathing, giant-winged beast. She watched as the goblin exited the cart, digging a raw piece of meat out of a sack he'd picked up in the cart and threw it towards the dragon that was eyeing them all guardedly. Its eyes immediately looked to the meat, picked it up between its teeth and retreated to a corner. The goblin then walked up to the grand door the dragon had been standing in front of, all sorts of complex twisting locks covering the door. He placed his palm on the door three times before it opened, revealing heaps of gold, silver, and bronze coins and several other glittering trinkets that Nyssa was sure were worth a mound of money.

Phoenix exited the cart, guiding Nyssa along with him, while Lyra, who was trying not to spew her breakfast everywhere, and Keenan waited in the cart. Reaching into his robes, Phoenix pulled out a large leather sack, and began to fill it with gold coins, then silver, and a few bronze. Nyssa watched this process, the goblin looking back and forth between father and daughter.

Once finished, father and daughter headed back to the cart, the goblin resealing the door and prodding the dragon back into a guarding position with a long steel rod. This resulted in a frown from Lyra, who thought it inhumane to treat a creature that way, though Phoenix and Keenan both remained expressionless, leaving Nyssa feeling conflicted when they left the bank as to whether she should feel sorry for the dragon or be indifferent.

Having already purchased her potions supplies and robes when Andreus took her to Ceserova Market, the group bypassed Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and headed into Amanuensis Quills, because Nyssa insisted she needed brand-new quills. She picked out two quills, a deep purple and pure white. From there, they headed to Flourish and Blotts, where they bought all her school books, next to Whizz Hard Books so that Nyssa could pick up a few '_light_' reading books, and then Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for a short stop (Nyssa ordered three scoops of chocolate).

"Where to next?" asked Nyssa, as she finished up her ice cream.

Keenan grinned in response, "Ollivander's, for your wand."

Her wand, Nyssa had been waiting for the day that she would get her wand since she went with her mom and Tristan to find his. It was an exciting moment, finding a wand. The wand chooses the wizard, the shopkeeper had told Tristan, and then, winking at Nyssa, or the witch. Walking to Ollivander's, she felt as light as a cloud, but when they reached the shop a chill ran up her spin. Magic was teeming from the tiny shop. She looked up at the peeling gold letters over the door of the shop that read: _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._

And then, with Keenan holding the door open for her, Phoenix, and Lyra, she entered the shop. If the outside was tiny, that was nothing compared to the inside. It was incredibly cramped, thousand of narrow boxes containing what could only be wands were piled right up to the ceiling, and the whole place had a thick layer of dust causing Lyra to sneeze. There was already a family at the counter, speaking to the shopkeeper. Three of them – the father, daughter, and son – had flaming red hair, whereas what looked to be the mother had curly brown hair. The daughter currently had a short red-wooded wand in her hand, flicking it up and down before laying it back down.

The bushy red-haired daughter turned to see the new customers, her blues eyes catching Nyssa's amber. "Hello," she said. "Are you headed to the Hogwarts in the fall as well?"

Nyssa nodded, walking up to the counter, inspired by the greeting. "Yes, I'm very excited."

The daughter's eyes widened as she continued to stare at Nyssa, who now had a measuring tape shooting through her nose, ignoring the wand the shopkeeper was offering for her to try. "Are you American?"

"Yes, but my dad's family is from England, I think," Nyssa replied, trying to keep track of the fast moving measuring tape. "My name's Nyssa Valentine. And you?"

"Rose Weasley," the daughter replied, now picking up the wand to try. It shot off blue and silver sparks as she did, which Nyssa watched curiously. Her parents both seemed to be pleased at this, so it must've meant it was the wand for Rose.

"There you are, Mrs. Weasley," said the shopkeeper, setting a wand in front of Nyssa for her to try, "Beech, Unicorn hair, 10 ¾ inches, surprisingly swishy. This wand is not for the unintelligent mind, young lady." Smiling, he then proceeded to snatch the wand Nyssa had just tried – resulting in the picture frame on the wall in front of her bursting into bits – from her and set off to find another one.

"How many wands did you try before you found that one?" Nyssa asked, gesturing to the wand Rose now held proudly in her hands.

Rose looked to Nyssa, grinning ear to ear, "Only three. Don't worry if you have to try several, though, my uncle Harry said he went through a barrel full."

That definitely did reassure Nyssa, who felt that Rose was perhaps a future friend in the making. As Rose and her family had yet to leave, Nyssa decided to engage in a bit more conversation with the girl, "Do you know what house you want to be in yet?"

"Mum and dad were in Gryffindor, but," she leaned closer to Nyssa to say this in a lower voice, "personally, I'd prefer to be in Ravenclaw."

"My godfather was in Ravenclaw, that's the house I want to be in too!" Nyssa exclaimed, attracting the attention of Rose's brother. He stared shyly at Nyssa from behind his mother.

Rose glanced back at her brother when she saw Nyssa looking at him, "That's my little brother, Hugo. Do you have a brother?"

"Three. And a sister. But none of them are close to me in age, except for Tristan, but he's –" She was cut off as tried another wand the shopkeeper set in front of her, then set it down again when it turned the shopkeeper's coffee mug into a coffee fountain.

"No worries," the shopkeeper assured her, "we'll find your wand."

After fifteen wand tests or so, Nyssa's parents and godfather had started to talk to Rose's parents, while Rose and Nyssa continued on discussing a variety of topics (upcoming classes, house elves – Rose told Nyssa all about her mom's house elf protection act, and family members). The shopkeeper looked exhausted but still sported a bright smile on his face and had a certain bounce in his step as he walked back once again with a wand box.

"Here, Cypress, Dragon Heartstring, 12 ¼ inches, slightly yielding. Go on, try it out." He watched Nyssa hesitantly, but nearly burst into tears when the wand shot off swirling bright gold sparks. "Yes, that's the one. Owners of cypress wands, Ms. Valentine, will willingly sacrifice themselves for loved ones and tend to be quite heroic. It has been said that there has yet to have been an owner that did not die a heroic death."

Briefly, Nyssa wondered how he knew her surname, but nearly rolled her eyes at herself for the thought. The answer was that he obviously was listening when she told Rose her name. But that brief thought quickly dissipated as she pondered the shopkeeper's mention of cypress wand owners dying heroic deaths. She didn't see herself as much of a heroic person, nor did she want to die a heroic death; death from old age would be much preferable.

Rose was beaming at Nyssa, still holding her own new wand protectively as the two girls left the shop, both promising to meet up at school, regardless of what house they were sorted in. They said goodbye, Rose saying she was heading to the apothecary to get her potions supplies, and then Nyssa turned to her parents and godfather, holding her new wand up in front of them proudly.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

Lyra laughed airily, "Yes, my love, it is very lovely."

"Longer than my wand," said Keenan, staring at the pocket his wand was sticking up from. "I s'pose that means you have more magical potential than me."

Nyssa's eyes lit up at this thought. She had been able to master a bit of control over her accidental magic once she'd learned what it was she was doing, so she'd always hoped that meant she was going to be a fantastic witch. "Is that what the length means?"

"Not necessarily, though it's been guessed. Some say the longer the wand is, the bigger the personality of its owner."

"Our Nyssa's always had a great personality," commented Lyra, her hands lightly placed upon Nyssa's shoulders. Nyssa shied away from her mom's compliment, averting her eyes to the cobblestone street as her cheeks reddened. She had never been able to take compliments well; being boastful, it just was not in her nature.

"Are you sure you don't want to head back home and go to the Salem Witches' Institute?" asked Phoenix jokingly, knowing that his daughter was set on her current school of choice. Once she was set on something there was no use trying to change her mind. He'd learnt that very early on, when she was five and had pitched a fit over the outfit she intended to wear on her first day of 'early witching' classes. Lyra would usually have been the one dealing with the outfit, but she'd left during the middle of the night when Andreus' Headmaster had called to say that he had come down with dragon pox. It had thus been left up to Phoenix to pick out an outfit (a purple skirt and light blue shirt was his final choice), but Nyssa adamantly refused until he relented and contacted his mother for assistance. His mother had been able to quickly resolve the ordeal, picking out a lovely ensemble that Nyssa was so delighted with she hugged her grandmother around the middle.

"Dad," Nyssa whined, having already heard this joking tone several times over the last weeks; the nearer the time for her to go away came, the more her daddy mentioned her enrolling in a school close to home.

Phoenix held up his hands in front of his chest defensively, "Alright, alright. It was only a suggestion."

"Oh, my," Lyra suddenly gasped, staring at a clock hanging in a nearby shop window. The time, according to the clock, was 6:00 PM. "It's late. We'd better head back now."

"I wish you'd stayed with me," Keenan moaned, "I don't get to see my god-daughter enough as it is." And he enveloped Nyssa in a hug, his arms easily wrapping around her body.

"Imagine how Alcina feels. Nyssa chose to go to your alma mater, not hers."

"That's right," Keenan grinned, pulling Nyssa back from himself to give her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. He remembered sitting at his desk, his secretary frantically trying to clean up the spilt coffee on his desk with her scarf while completely forgetting she could use magic, when the owl flew in delivering Nyssa's letter. Once he'd seen who the letter was from, he cleaned up the spilt coffee with a flick of his wand and sent the secretary away, ripping it open. His delight with the contents was evident to his fellow governors of Hogwarts when he waltzed into their meeting two hours later and loudly proclaimed that they were going to admit his god-daughter, regardless of what country she came from. No one had disagreed, though some questioned why an American witch would choose to go to a British institution when she had perfectly acceptable schools in the United States.

"Well, come here then," Phoenix called to Nyssa, offering his hand to her.

Nyssa groaned, "Daddy, I _hate_ apparition." She did, really. It was probably the most horrible form of transportation in the world, not to mention the risk of being spliced in two.

Keenan pushed her closer to Phoenix and watched as Nyssa reluctantly took her dad's hand. "Go on, you'll survive." She sent him once last pout before Phoenix spun around, disappearing with Nyssa and Lyra. Pulling out his money pouch, he checked how many galleons he had left, and deciding that there was enough for a drink or two, set off for the Leaky Cauldron for some firewhiskey.

* * *

Phoenix, Lyra, and Nyssa arrived in front of a large black gate; Nyssa was dramatically thanking 'Merlin' for her intact body parts, counting her fingers and checking her elbows as her parents watched bemusedly. It was during this time that the gate opened on its own, allowing the three to enter. Tall shrubbery was on either side of the long path they walked, which lead up to a huge, castle-like house. There were two towers on each side of the house, one currently occupied Nyssa and the other, the owner's only son. Stone gargoyles guarded the steps up to the large silver front door, encrusted with the family's crest. This door also opened on its own to allow entrance to the three.

Nyssa happily ran inside, her mom shouting after her to slow down. But she let that slip through one ear and out the other, her only focus being on finding the blonde-haired boy who lived in the tower opposite the one she stayed in to show off her wand. Having come to know that he was very attached to books, she assumed he would be near them, and his favorite books, she knew, were kept in the family den.

"Scorpius," she shouted upon entering the den, running to the blonde-haired boy sitting in a corner, a large tome covering his arms from his hand to elbow. Pulling her wand from inside her cloak, she presented it in front of his face, forcing him to lay the tome on his lap. "Isn't it beautiful?"

He looked at her with an agitated expression; she had interrupted his reading, which he'd already informed her was something she was not to do. But seeing the bright smile upon her face he could not help it when he offered one back. "What sort of wood is it?"

"Cypress."

"Core?"

"Dragon heartstring, like yours."

That was true. His wand core was also dragon heartstring, though his wood was pine. His grandfather had been quite disappointed, saying that it should have been elm, as that sort of wood chose true pure-bloods. He also remembered his remark that no Malfoy had ever had such a flimsy wood as pine. Later at home, both of his parents had assured him that his grandfather was wrong and his wand was perfectly fine. He was still debating on whether he believed that or not.

"What length did you say yours was?" Nyssa asked, obviously unaware at the inner turmoil her raising of the wand subject had just brought up.

"Eleven and two-fourths inches," he replied, and quirked an eyebrow when she looked down at him smugly.

"Mine's twelve and one-fourth inches."

"So?"

"Did you know that the length tells you the magical potential of the owner?"

With a frown, he replied, "That's not true."

"Might be."

A sudden pop distracted the two from any further conversation. Gurgle, Scorpius' family's house elf was staring up at the two, clutching the white-cloth over his chest hesitantly. "Master says it is time for dinner, sir and madam."

Scorpius glanced up at an ornate wall clock on the opposite wall from where he sat, and then looked to Nyssa. "You were gone a while, weren't you? What took you so long?"

Nyssa shrugged, following the nervous Gurgle from the den, Scorpius now walking quickly behind her to catch up, "Have you been to Gringotts?"

"Of course," he called, still a few steps behind. For now, he cursed his short legs and looked forward to the day that he would be able to easily catch up or even stride ahead of Nyssa. "Why?"

"Does your family have a dragon guarding your vault?"

"No, it's a sphinx." He finally caught up to her, breathing more heavily than normal and glaring at the back of Gurgle's head for not having slowed down for him. The elf had seemed to prefer Nyssa over him ever since she arrived. "Much more annoying than dragons, sphinxes are."

Gurgle made a sharp turn to the left, causing Scorpius to plow into Nyssa, sending the girl stumbling forward into the dining room. Once she'd regained her footing, she turned to glare at Scorpius, who was looking back apologetically. "It was the elf's fault."

"Sure, blame it on the elf, Mr. Clumsy," was the cool reply from Nyssa, who promptly turned around and marched to an open seat at the table. Scorpius lowered his shoulders slightly and took the open seat beside Nyssa, hoping that she would get over her petty anger during the course of dinner.

"I see you two are getting along swimmingly still," commented Scorpius' pretty, light brown-haired mother, Astoria. She had extremely pale white skin, emerald green eyes, and long slender fingers.

Lyra calmly sipped the red wine in her hand, twirling the wine in the glass round and round during intervals, "I hope you two are placed in the same house." She tucked a few of her brown locks behind her right ear lobe, smiling at the two children. Their families got on well, in fact, Phoenix had told her, the Valentines and Malfoys were distantly related. The thought of Nyssa having at least one person she knew nearby and the Malfoy family in close proximity comforted her. "You'll be the only person Nyssa knows at Hogwarts."

"No, he won't," Nyssa countered, looking up from her sautéed potatoes and grilled fish, "That girl I met today, Rose Weasley, is a first-year too." The bushy redhead had appeared to be someone she could easily form a friendship with and she hoped that Rose thought the same of her.

"Weasley?" It was Scorpius' father, Draco, who asked this, his blue eyes looking at Nyssa. He had the same light blonde hair as Scorpius, was tall and thin; Scorpius looked like the younger version of him.

"Yes," it was Phoenix who responded, "Lyra and I spoke to her parents, Ron and Hermione Weasley. They are one of the twenty-eight, aren't they?" By twenty-eight, he meant the twenty-eight purely pure-blood families of Britain, of course. He was proud to say that the Valentine family was one of the seventeen purely pure-blood families of the United States.

"Granger," Draco paused, "I mean, Hermione, is a muggle-born."

"Blood-traitors, then?"

Draco nodded slowly in reply, obviously much more uncomfortable with the topic of blood than Phoenix. It was a reminder of how different their young lives had been, yet how similar. Draco, like Phoenix, had grown up being told that he was superior to other witches and wizards due to being pure-blood, but Phoenix had not been all but forced to join a group of followers of the darkest wizard in current times. The wizarding war in Britain had barely had an effect on American wizards and witches, though at the time they had sympathized with the British and their government sent dark wizard catchers to help in the fight against Voldemort. And so Phoenix, having not seen the horrors brought about by blood supremacists, still believed in the whole gimmick of superior blood, whereas Draco had long abandoned the notion.

"Didn't you hate Ron Weasley, dad? Mum said you hated each other," piped up Scorpius, jamming a large piece of potato into his mouth.

"I didn't say hate," Astoria chided her son, offering an apologetic smile to her husband.

Nyssa sighed, "I don't care that Rose is a half-blood. She was very nice." She'd dealt with her grandmother's crazy blood supremacist thoughts for long enough now and hoped that her daddy would let go of it all soon too.

"That's right, sweetie," Lyra gave an encouraging smile to her daughter, eyeing her husband from the corner of her eye.

With Phoenix giving no comment, the subject was dropped and the two families resumed dinner with silence, until Nyssa bet Scorpius two chocolate frogs that she could beat him in a broom race. It had taken several promises of sweets from Astoria and Lyra to get the two children to forget the idea. Secretly, the two planned to conduct the race the next day anyway, though they agreed they'd have to do it far away from the house so that their mother's didn't catch on.

* * *

**Second chapter! **

**Please review and tell me your thoughts! **


	4. Another Black?

_Another Black?_

Scorpius and Nyssa had spent the rest of the summer before the beginning of term reading from their textbooks. They found that Scorpius very much enjoyed the subjects of Potions and Transfiguration, while Nyssa was more partial to Charms and History of Magic. The two were dismayed during the process of packing their trunks when their respective mothers reminded them that first years were not allowed to have broomsticks. Scorpius suggested they smuggle them in over dinner one evening, causing his father to laugh, after which he told them that he had the same thought his first year. The adults had then gone into a discussion of the silly things they'd done during their school years, forcing Nyssa and Scorpius to retreat to Scorpius' room.

It was very early in the morning when Gurgle awoke Nyssa on the day they were to set off for Hogwarts. The elf had a slight struggle waking her, not wanting to accidentally hurt the girl; he had gently prodded her several times and called her name over the course of three minutes before Nyssa drowsily opened her eyes. Gurgle informed her then that Scorpius was already downstairs eating breakfast and that her parents were requesting that she quickly get ready as they would be leaving soon. With a long yawn and a stretch, as per her usual morning wake-up routine, Nyssa rolled out of bed and got ready, though not without a bit of grumbling as she did.

And so, after eating breakfast – Lyra and Astoria had urged the two children to eat enough to feed ten dragons – they drove to King's Cross in a muggle transportation device. Of course, Nyssa knew that muggles called it a _car_, but her family did not own one, which made it her first time having ridden in such a thing. Scorpius scoffed at her enthusiasm over the car ride, calling her weird, and her delight killed the retort that she'd surely have said otherwise.

At King's Cross, there were many muggles, a sight which, again, was a fascination for Nyssa. Her family lived in a wizarding community in the United States, all but isolated from Muggles. She had not even gone to a muggle school for her early years, like most other American witches and wizards. Lyra had to whisper in her ear to stop staring so much at the muggles, which was drawing attention to the group; Nyssa's pet fox and Scorpius' owl were doing enough that already.

"Is there really a platform nine and three-quarters? I don't see it." Nyssa leaned to Scorpius, staring up at the sign that read: Platform 9. The next sign was for Platform 10, but there wasn't one that read 9 ¾ in the vicinity. She was starting to think that perhaps the platform was enchanted so that only British wizards could see it.

"Of course you can see it. It's that brick wall," he pointed toward the barricade between platforms 9 and 10. Already there, an older girl with blonde hair was running towards the barricade. Nyssa watched wide-eyed as she disappeared into the barricade instead of crashing against it and being sent to a local hospital for a severe concussion.

She turned to Scorpius again, "The muggles don't see us disappearing into the wall?"

"Muggles don't notice much, do they?"

"I suppose not," she mumbled, now more aware than ever of how little she understand muggles in relation to magic. This was a severe lack in her education so far, she felt, seeing as she now did not know whether she was being too cautious or reckless around muggles. It was something she hoped Hogwarts could rectify for her, after all, Scorpius had mentioned that they offered extra subjects in third year and there was bound to be a muggle course (she hoped).

"Nyssa," Draco called to the girl, gesturing her towards him; he stood in front of the barricade. Carefully, glancing both ways at passing muggles, Nyssa pushed her trolley forwards in front of the barricade. Gulping, she stared at the barricade, and then to Draco, who was smiling reassuringly at the queasy girl. "You'll be fine. Don't think about crashing and you'll go right through to the other side."

Don't think about crashing? Nyssa wanted to tell him that it was impossible not to. Sure, she was used to magic. She was a pure-blood, for Merlin's sake! But she'd never willingly run into a barricade, which is what she was about to attempt. She knew that once she'd gone through, everything would be fine and she'd think herself quite silly for being afraid in the first place, but at the moment she'd yet to go through and couldn't control the fear that was rising.

"Oh, go on," Scorpius called, waiting impatiently behind Nyssa. He was not frightened in the least, having heard of the process since he was a young child.

Tightening her grip on the trolley, Nyssa closed her eyes and willed all her courage to come forth when she started walking forward. Hoping to end it quickly, she picked up her pace, almost at a light jog, opening her eyes at the last minute to see the barricade right in front of her face. The next sight that greeted her was a bright red train, little puffs of steam coming up from the track to form a slim layer of white around the bottom.

Scorpius came in after her, his parents and Nyssa's walking in quite comfortably. Of course, it was at this moment that the shame from being afraid came on, but it only lasted for a short moment, because Scorpius was soon directing her attention to lively platform. Families gathered around students, some already dress in their school uniforms, paying their last goodbyes until winter break. Nyssa just barely caught the sight of a bright blue-haired boy rushing onto the train after a long blonde-haired girl.

With their parents help, Nyssa and Scorpius found and empty compartment and loaded their heavy trunks on to it – Phoenix told Nyssa that she was taking too much stuff along with her, just like her mother always did. That earned him a light slap on the arm from Lyra. Their trunks stored in the luggage rack beneath the benches and their pets stored above on another rack, the two families headed back out to the platform.

Draco patted Scorpius on the head as Astoria hugged him tightly around the middle. The boy gave an exasperated look to Nyssa, who was currently being enveloped in a bone-crushing hug from her own mother and was unable to reciprocate. None of them noticed a red-haired man glancing their way and then turning to his family to make mention of the blonde-haired boy.

"Oh, I'll miss you so," Lyra cried, releasing Nyssa from the hug to stare at her teary-eyed. A loud man's voice announcing the train's impending departure sent Nyssa into another harsh hug, only to be rescued by her daddy.

Phoenix embraced her gently and gave her a kiss on the forehead, holding her head between his hands. "You'll do well. We love you very much."

"Yes, so much," her mother added, sniffing. "You have to write often. It'll take longer to receive letters, of course, us being across the ocean."

"I love you too," she responded to both, now feeling tears welling up in her own eyes. Quickly wiping them away, she backed away from the two, knowing that she had to get on the train now or she might just decide to go back home with the both of them. "And I promise to write."

With that, she turned, hoping onto the train and rushing to her compartment so that she could wave goodbye from her window. Scorpius soon joined her, complaining loudly about how his mother had only just let him go. The two leaned out the window of their compartment, focusing on their parents through the large crowd of other parents and siblings that were trying to wave goodbye to other students. They waved until the train rounded a bend, the platform vanishing from view.

Scorpius closed the window as they sat back down, bending down to take his uniform out of his trunk. He turned to Nyssa, "Dad said they'll tell us to put them on later. It'd be better to do it now, before everyone else is cramming the bathrooms, don't you think?"

Nyssa nodded, finding it a bit harder to form words than Scorpius at the moment. She was excited to be heading to Hogwarts, but at the same time she felt inexplicable silence over the fact that she had just left her parents. It was not even set in stone that she would be heading home for winter break; they had discussed the possibility of her simply staying with Keenan. That meant she might have just seen her parents for the last time for almost a year. She'd never stayed away from her parents for longer than a day or two, much less a year.

"I'll go to the toilets. You can change here, I'll lock the door."

Nyssa shook her head, reaching into her own trunk to pull out her plain black robe uniform. "I'll go to the bathrooms. It's fine."

"You're sure? Dad says they're cramped."

"I'm not fat," she stuck her tongue out at him as she left the compartment, uniform in her arms. As to the location of the bathrooms on this train, she had absolutely no idea, but decided to head left right as if she did. There was bound to be a sign or someone along the way that she could ask. Sure enough, not too far from their compartment, she saw a sign on the wall, directing her to take a right in about four steps to reach the 'Lavatory'. It was, as Scorpius had warned, very cramped inside one of the little stalls. She was lucky to still be a child and could only assume that there were bigger bathrooms to be found somewhere for the older students.

It was on her way back from changing, when she was staring curiously at the pattern of the carpet, that the train gave a sudden lurch, and something heavy fell on her pushing her backwards to the floor. She had closed her eyes before she hit the floor, a reaction, Ronan had once explained to her, that bodies perform automatically when bracing for impact.

The weight on top of her quickly moved, followed by a young boy's voice, "Sorry! The train suddenly – I didn't mean…I'm really sorry," he trailed off and Nyssa opened her eyes to see a blushing face above her. The boy looked to be her age, had messy black hair and brilliant green eyes. He was looking at her nervously, as if expecting her to pounce on him out of anger.

She frowned at the fact that he was not offering to help her stand and held her arm up to him. He took it, pulling her up, still blushing when she was standing and refusing to meet her eyes. "Its fine," she assured him. "I know you didn't do it on purpose."

He nodded, still not meeting her eyes, though he had looked up when she first spoke, no doubt surprised by her accent. Nyssa was sure that this would continue for a few weeks until her classmates got used to it. She'd already prepared herself for the odd glances and questions, so it wouldn't have bothered her at all had he pointed at her like an animal on display in a muggle zoo and shouted something about her being American. But he didn't, which she liked.

"My name's Nyssa Valentine. I'm a first-year. What about you?"

"Albus Potter," he replied hesitantly and looked up then, the expression on his face telling her he was expecting her to now ogle at him. For what reason, she had no idea. Perhaps he was famous? He didn't seem like the type though, and he was only her age, she thought. He was probably the son of someone important, but Nyssa had no idea who that was. Albus seemed relived, however, that she didn't have any out of the ordinary reaction to his name and went on, "I'm a first-year as well." He paused. "Sorry, but, you're American, aren't you?"

Nyssa laughed, "Yes, my godfather got me into Hogwarts. He's on the board of governors."

The boy nodded, "Well," he paused again and Nyssa thought at that moment that he seemed quite nervous, "see you at school?"

"See you at school," Nyssa replied, smiling at him, to which she received a small smile in return. Reentering the compartment, she found Scorpius sitting comfortably on one of the benches, his legs stretched out so that there was no room for anyone else to sit beside him. His eyes were closed with his arms crossed over his chest, giving off the illusion that he was asleep. She knew better, of course, and lightly poked him with her shoe once she'd sat down.

He opened one eye, looking towards her, and then opened the other, sitting up straight. "Are they gone?" He looked to the closed compartment door, checking for any lurking figures outside.

"Is who gone?"

Scorpius sighed, "You don't want to know."

"I do." He shook his head. "Just tell me."

"Ambrosia Selwyn and Vincent Goyle, their parents were friends," he said this with a frown, "of my father's when he was in school."

She moved into a position similar to Scorpius', finding that the benches weren't so uncomfortable this way. "They wanted to sit with you or something?"

Scorpius nodded with a scowl on his face at the thought and Nyssa decided to drop the subject. They had obviously said something upsetting to Scorpius; otherwise he wouldn't be in such a foul mood. It wasn't until a witch with a trolley full of food came round that he brightened up a bit, buying some chocolate frogs and a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Nyssa asked the witch if she had any Fairy Drops, receiving a short no, and bought a Pumpkin pasty instead.

"What's a Fairy Drop?" asked Scorpius, biting the head off of his chocolate frog before it could leap from the wrapper.

Nyssa chewed on her pumpkin pasty and swallowed before replying, "It's a candy, round sweet and sort of sour, like a fairy's personality."

"Have you met a fairy?"

Nyssa gasped. "You haven't?" And when Scorpius shook his head in reply, she grinned. "Fairies are wonderful. They aren't tiny, you know, like in the stories. Most are as big as our parents. And their wings, they have these huge wings!" She went on, describing in detail to Scorpius the adult-size fairies she'd seen, all with large, jagged wings, sharp teeth, and mischievous smiles on their faces. They liked to play pranks on people, she told him, and those stories of fairies stealing fair-haired babies away weren't at all made up either.

"But why the fair-haired babies? Do they have something against them?"

Giggling, Nyssa was barely able to get out her answer, "They think that fair-haired babies are their ancestors reincarnated."

"What?" Scorpius gave her a strange look. He didn't find it funny like Nyssa, just very strange. "That's bizarre. You'd think they were a bit smarter than that."

"They are smart, but, yes, a bit ignorant when it comes to things like that," Nyssa waved it off, looking forlornly at the leftover wrapper from her pumpkin pasty and wishing that she had bought more than just one thing, like Scorpius. He had offered to share his beans earlier, but after eating a pink one that tasted like toothpaste, she declined any further offers of a bean.

Once Scorpius had finished off his chocolate frogs and finished torturing himself with the oddly flavoured beans, he passed Nyssa a few cards to look over. "You don't have these in the states?"

"No," she replied, watching Bowman Wright, the inventor of the snitch, chase after said invention before disappearing completely. "But we have Magi cards. I think they're sort of the same, only they've got famous American witches and wizards on them." She picked up another cared, staring at a man that looked oddly familiar. He had messy black hair and green eyes, just like that boy she'd ran into earlier. In the picture, he gave a little smile and wave, and then left quickly, as if he were a bit shy. Turning it over, she read the back.

_Harry Potter._

_The first and only known wizard to survive the Killing Curse, earning the title "The Boy Who Lived." Youngest Quidditch player in the last century after gaining the spot of Seeker in the Gryffindor Quidditch Team in his first year at Hogwarts in 1991. Also known for having found Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets and defeating the monster within, which was a basilisk, in his second year at Hogwarts. Only known Gryffindor student able to speak Parseltongue. Youngest competitor of the Triwizard Tournament and winner of said Tournament at the age of 14 in 1995. The last master of death for having gained true possession of all three Deathly Hallows. Most famous for the defeat of the most dangerous dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, in 1998 and his work and revolutionization of the Ministry of Magic._

"Harry Potter," she repeated the name to herself, gaining the attention of Scorpius. "He must be very famous, having done all this."

"He is," Scorpius answered, "and it's just our luck we get stuck with his son."

Nyssa looked up at him, "His son? Is he in our year?"

"He is. His name's Albus Potter, according to my dad."

She gasped, suddenly remembering the boy from earlier. "Albus Potter?" Scorpius nodded, raising an eyebrow at her surprised expression. "But I've met him already. Out in the hall, he fell on me." It was no wonder, she thought, that he had looked at her so expectantly and was surprised when she did not overreact upon meeting him. Had she known when she met him who his father was, she now wondered whether she would have acted differently. He seemed so very glad that she didn't make a big deal out of it and she regretted the fact that she was starting to feel as if she should have treated him with a bit more respect.

"Fell on you?"

Dazed, she quickly choked out, "Yes, but on accident."

"Was he arrogant?" Scorpius' tone told her that he expected Albus Potter to be quite the snob, having a famous father and all that. But Nyssa didn't think that at all. He, Albus, had seemed not at all boastful or eager to announce to everyone that his father was this famous man. It would get annoying, she supposed, to have everyone look at you as 'Harry Potter's son' and not you yourself.

"No," she said, "he was shy. I think he liked that I didn't know who he was."

The surprise was evident on Scorpius' face, but he didn't respond, instead standing up as the train slowed. He peered out the window as the train came to a complete stop, Nyssa anxiously adjusting her collar, though anyone would have told her she could not make it any straighter than it already was. "We've arrived," Scorpius said slowly, and Nyssa was sure she heard a bit of unease in his voice. Perhaps he was starting to feel what she had when they'd first left the station.

They waited until the majority of other students had piled out of the train in an attempt to avoid being squashed by the older students. Unfortunately, this plan didn't work out so well, and they were shoved around, losing each other several times before they were able to get off the platform. It was very dark out and Nyssa wished they were able to perform magic already; were they able to, she would have already lit a small fire, as it was also rather nippy.

"Firs' years!" A loud, booming voice called out through the crowd of students. Nyssa eyes widened when she caught sight of the man the voice belonged to. He was, to say it simply, huge. Extremely tall and extremely wide, he towered over all the students, a little lantern in his hands that looked as big as a watermelon. "Firs' years over here! C'mon follow me! Firs' years! Mind yer step, now!"

Nyssa understand why he told them to mind their step as all the first years traveled down a steep, narrow path. One girl slipped and the giant man caught her, placing her back up right, warning them all again to be mindful of their steps. Overly conscious now of the fact that she could very easily fall, Nyssa watched the ground for any holes or particularly slick spots on the path. Once or twice, she clutched onto the back of Scorpius' robes when she lost her balance, offering apologetic smiles when she did.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a moment," the man called back to the shivering, shaky first years.

And they did, as soon as they turned a particularly sharp corner – Nyssa was sure she'd have fallen had Scorpius not quickly grabbed her hand to prevent it. They all stood on the edge of a dark lake and standing on a cliff across from them was a huge castle. Several gasps and words of surprise rose up from the group, and Nyssa herself had let out a slow 'Wow'.

They all climbed into the boats, four to one boat, as the giant man instructed. Nyssa and Scorpius climbed in with two black-haired boys, both still transfixed with the castle across the lake. Once all the first years had made it into the boats, the giant man climbed into one himself, looking around, "Everyone in? Forward!" On command the boats stirred forward, headed to the looming castle in the distance. Voices of older students could be heard from far off, and Nyssa was positive she spotted a mermaid in the water, though Scorpius assured it was probably just a fish.

"Heads down!" The giant man shouted as they came upon a dark tunnel. It was pitch black inside and Nyssa was unable to see even her outstretched hand.

She was thankful when they reached a dock and clambered out of the boats, the giant man smiling down at them all. Behind him, a door opened, and a tall round-faced man, with blonde hair and twinkling brown eyes, dressed in dark red robes, walked in, clapping the giant man on the back. "Good work, Hagrid. I'll take 'em in now."

"Don't worry," the giant man, Hagrid called after them as they all followed the other man, "yeh'll love Hogwarts!"

They were led into a grand hall, lit torches on the wall and medieval décor scattered around them. There were all sorts of paintings, with some of the occupants tipping their hats or waving at the young first years, hanging on the walls they passed by. The red-robbed man led them into a small, crowded chamber off to the side of the hall, waiting until they'd all entered to shut the door and turn to them with a bright grin on his face. "Welcome to Hogwarts," he said, the smile not leaving his face. He appeared to be trying to wipe the worried looks off the faces of the first years by sending out rays of warmth. "My name is Professor Longbottom. The start of term banquet will begin shortly, but before that, you'll be sorted into your houses."

At this, there were several gasp, but he continued, "Yes, in front of the rest of the school. I know your all feeling a bit queasy. I did too, when I was sorted, but it'll pass. Now, you'll be put in one of four houses." He raised one of his hands, ticking off the houses as he said the name, "Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff. While you're here, members of your house will be like your family." He made to leave, and had gotten halfway out the door, before turning back and saying, "Almost forgot. There's the House Cup at the end of the year for the house that has the most points. You can earn points in your classes, but points will be deducted for misconduct." And then he left them, promising to come back soon.

As soon as the door was shut, those who'd met on the train or previously turned to each other, voicing their concerns. Nyssa turned to Scorpius, unable to keep her nervousness off her face, "What house do you think you'll be in?"

She was glad to see that he looked just as nervous as her, running his shaky hand through his slicked back hair. "Mum and dad were in Slytherin, all the family have been."

"Grandmother said all our family was in Slytherin, but Granny said her grandpa was in Hufflepuff," Nyssa fretted. "I want to be in Ravenclaw. Do you think I can be?"

Scorpius shrugged lightly, "Ravenclaws are smart, you're sort of smart."

"Sort of?" She repeated weakly. Usually, she'd have had a nice retort for that blow against her intelligence, but like back in the car, her despair was now preventing that. What if she was put in the wrong house or none at all? She quickly dismissed that last thought. Now she desperately wanted to be in the same house as someone she knew, and there were only two, Scorpius and Rose. But, then, she didn't really know Rose that well. Her eyes searched the crowd of first years for the bushy redhead, but it was too crowded for her to see through the group of first years.

Shortly, Professor Longbottom returned, had them form a line of twos, and then lead them through the Entrance Hall and into another very large hall. All of the older students were already seated, watching the first years curiously. Nyssa noticed that dozens upon dozens of candles were floating above the tables, illuminating the hall, and looking up saw that the ceiling was the night sky. "Is that really the sky?" She whispered to Scorpius, who was walking silently beside her. He didn't respond his eyes trained on an old grimy hat sitting on a stool atop some steps leading up to what could only be the teacher's table. Professor Longbottom stopped in front of the steps, waiting for all the first years to gather round.

The brim of the hat opened up and a voice began to sing:

_Whether you be brave and courageous,_

_Cunning and determined,_

_Clever and gifted,_

_Or helpful and generous,_

_Into a house, I will sort you._

_Perhaps Gryffindor is your home,_

_Among those brave lions with courageous hearts,_

_Or the snake-bearing Slytherin,_

_Where craftiness is praised as an art,_

_Perhaps Ravenclaw calls to you,_

_There you'll find the witty,_

_Or good old Hufflepuff,_

_A house that welcomes every kiddy._

_Put me on, I won't bite,_

_I'll sort you on this night,_

_And when I'm done, don't you fret,_

_You'll be in the house that fits you best._

_But remind you, I must,_

_It is my duty,_

_Together we stand or together we fall._

There was loud applause and some murmuring from the students as the hat finished its song. Professor Longbottom stepped forward, casting a furtive glance towards the teacher's table, and then turned around to quiet the hall. When he raised his hands, a sudden hush fell all around, and he produced a roll out of parchment from the inside of his robes. "When I call your name," he was addressing the first years, "you will step forward and place the hat on your head." He unrolled the parchment, and the sorting began with, "Ames, Sara!"

Nyssa watched the sorting anxiously, her now sweaty hands gripping her robes tightly. One by one the first years were called forward, placing the hat on their heads, and being sorted. They each received a great round of applause from their houses once they were sorted, which took from a few seconds to long minutes. She hoped her sorting would be quick, the less time she had to be stared at by the whole hall, the better.

Then, "Malfoy, Scorpius!" was called. Beside her, Scorpius straightened up, striding up the steps to the hat. The hall was very silent as he placed the hat on his head after sitting on the stool. It was a while before the brim of the hat opened as it had down many times previous now and shouted, "Ravenclaw!" The Ravenclaw table instantaneously burst into cheers; though Nyssa was sure she heard a few shocked gasps around all the tables. She shot a smile to Scorpius as he passed her, receiving a meek beam back.

Again, she waited, rocking back and forth on her heels. She'd be one of the last, she knew, and that only made things worse. But with the group of first years dwindling, she was now able to spot Rose, who also saw her and gave a short wave, which she reciprocated. Albus Potter was standing beside Rose, she noticed, and then wondered if they knew each other well. Just as she thought of this, Professor Longbottom called out, "Potter, Albus!" The entire hall went so silent she could hear the breathing of the boy next to her.

Albus trudged up the steps, avoiding making direct eye contact with any of the many students staring at him, and noticeably reddened in the cheeks when three boys called out to him from the Gryffindor table. He sat down on the stool, and then, hesitantly placed the hat on atop his head. It took only a few moments before the hat belted out, "Gryffindor!" Said table erupted into cheers, and Nyssa found herself clapping along with all the extremely happy Gryffindors. Albus walked quickly to the table, sitting down across from a boy that had the same messy hair as he did, telling him something that Nyssa was unable to hear over the still cheering table.

Rose moved closer to her after Albus was gone, the two girls forcing smiles at one another. Nyssa noticed that Rose had her hands clenched together and her knuckles were white. She seemed altogether more nervous than Nyssa, which, she hated to admit, made her feel a bit better. It didn't seem very long at all after Rose had come to stand beside her that Professor Longbottom called, "Valentine, Nyssa!" Again, quiet fell over the hall and Nyssa willed herself up the stairs to the stool. She took a deep breath, and with her trembling hands, picked up the hat, sat on the stool, then lowered the hat on to her head.

"What's this?" A voice drawled in her ear, making her jump. "Another Black here at Hogwarts? I thought _he_ was the last."

"I'm not a Black," she responded in her thoughts, "I'm a Valentine." And, much to her surprise, the hat seemed to have heard those thoughts.

"Are you sure?" Her stomach was doing little flops in her abdomen and the hat wasn't helping with this sort of talk. What did it mean, was she sure she was a Valentine? Of course she was sure. Her daddy was a Valentine and she had his last name. "Hm…Hufflepuff? No, no, that would never suit you. Slytherin? You lack certain…skills. Ravenclaw? Oh, my, I see. Yes, you have the intelligence, but there's something else. What's this? Oh, yes, yes, I know just where you belong," the hat paused and Nyssa waited for what seemed an eternity, "GRYFFINDOR!"

A huge wave of applause from the Gryffindor table greeted her as she removed the hat, looking down into the smiling face of Professor Longbottom. She tried to smile back, but found she was too shocked as she placed the hat back on the stool and began to walk to the Gryffindor table. Her eyes found Scorpius' at the Ravenclaw table. He looked worried. Maybe, Nyssa thought, he had been hoping just as much as she that they ended up in the same house.

She sat down beside Albus Potter, the boy with the famous father who fallen on her on the train. He turned to her, smiling widely, though she noticed that he still seemed a bit shy and looked away from her rather quickly. From across the table, a trio of boys all greeted her at the same time, "Welcome to Gryffindor!" The one with the same messy hair as Albus added, "The best house at Hogwarts!"


	5. The Trio

_The Trio_

Rose, one of the last to be sorted, ended up in Ravenclaw, causing the trio that had greeted Nyssa to groan, while Albus frowned slightly. When the sorting of students finally did finish, the hat and stool were moved, and all attention went to the now standing Headmistress. She was a short, chubby woman, round-faced and bright eyed and wearing Hufflepuff-gold robes. "Welcome to Hogwarts, first years and welcome back to all the rest of you lot." There was a chuckle among the older students at this, and Nyssa thought that her choice of words made her seem quite relaxed. "As we start another school year, I want to say only these words," her eyes traveled around each of the tables, capturing the attention of all the students, "work hard, create long-lasting friendships, and have a jolly good time! Let the feast begin!" She clapped her hands twice and food appeared on the table.

Any sort of food imaginable popped up; roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, fries, peas, carrots, beans, gravy and biscuits, wheat bread, banana bread, and all sorts of condiments. There were a few food items she did not recognize, but she did not ask anyone what the unknown dishes were, knowing it would only make her stick out more. She looked to the left at the four chatting girls that would be her roommates for the next seven years, feeling slightly left out that they had not invited her to join their conversation.

Pouting, she harshly stuck her fork into a carrot, raised it to her mouth, bit off a piece, and chewed silently. Carrots were probably one of the most tolerable vegetables, in her opinion, especially when cooked. Uncooked, carrots were a bit like spinach, which did not taste good at all according to her taste buds. Her mom always did chide her to eat more vegetables and she thought to herself that her mom would be beaming down at her right now if she were here.

The three boys in front of her were being very loud at the moment, not that all the other groups of friends weren't. But they had particularly devilish smirks on their faces, glancing to the messy-haired Albus beside her and then back to a piece of parchment they kept pointing at. They probably thought they were hiding the parchment rather well, passing it quickly to each other and stuffing it into their robes, but anyone with seeing eyes could see it.

In a sudden motion, the three looked up at her, two pairs of brown one pair of blue eyes all penetrating hers. "So, Nyssa," the one in the middle spoke her name with a playful tone. He had a caramel complexion, dark brown hair and brown eyes, was taller than the black-haired boy next to him, and lanky. "We heard about you and Al."

Said boy looked up quickly from his plate, a grimace on his face. "Shut up, Fred," he hissed to the older boy.

"What's the problem, Albus? We're only greeting my future sister-in-law," this was the messy-haired black boy and he winked at her as he said this. Though she had no idea why he was implying she was going to marry Albus, she was able to infer that he was Albus' brother due to the fact that he had referred to her as '_his_' sister-in-law specifically. His eyes, however, were not the same pretty green as Albus', but a bright brown.

"James," Albus groaned, and then turned to Nyssa with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry. They're only messing with you because of me."

"We're not messing with her," cried the dirty blonde-haired boy on the far left indignantly. He had misty blue eyes and a charming aura about him, something that Nyssa had noticed when she first sat down and had found it hard to not look in his direction."Is it true that Albus tried to snog you?"

Nyssa quirked an eyebrow, while Albus went bright red in the cheeks, "Snog?" The term was unfamiliar to her.

"I did not!" Albus shouted, a little too loudly as it drew the attention of several other students nearby. This only made the three boys sitting across from him laugh.

"We were only joking, Al," James taunted, "no need to deny it so forcefully." With Albus still blushing and the two other boys smirking impishly, he faced Nyssa and stretched his hand across the table, offering her a handshake. "James Sirius Potter, this git's," he gestured towards Albus, "more charming and intelligent older brother." Nyssa shook his hand lightly and quickly, feeling that his last comment had been unnecessary.

Next the dark brown-haired boy introduced himself, "Fred Weasley. I'm their cousin." He looked to Albus and James when saying the last bit.

"And I'm Louis Weasley," the blonde-haired boy said proudly, "also their cousin."

Nyssa turned to Albus, "Do you have many cousins?"

"Yes," Albus started to speak, but was cut off quickly by the voice of James.

"That's our cousin Roxanne, Fred's sister," James butted in, pointing towards a curly brown-haired girl sitting at the Hufflepuff table, "And there's Molly," he pointed towards a pretty red-haired girl sitting beside Rose at the Ravenclaw table, "her sister Lucy," towards the right end of the Gryffindor sat another red-haired girl wearing horn-rimmed glasses and intently reading a book, "Dominique, Louis' sister" a beautiful blonde-haired girl sitting at the Hufflepuff table, "and Victoire, also Louis' sister." The last one was an older version of Dominique, except that she was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, chatting with a bunch of other girls; several boys, Nyssa noticed, were fawning over her. For some reason, she thought Victoire looked familiar, but couldn't quite pinpoint where she might have seen her.

"Very many, then," she commented to Albus, who'd been unfairly spoken over by James. For some reason, the quiet resignation of Albus told her that this happened often. It wasn't hard to guess why; James was louder and more sociable, whereas Albus was quiet and shy, like a caterpillar in its cocoon.

"What about you?" Fred prodded her arm with the end of his fork to gain her attention, willing her to talk to the trio as well. "Do you have many cousins?"

"Four. Leon, Nolan, Lacerta, and Corvus."

"Those last two are weird names," commented Louis, munching slowly on a sausage. He had not eaten much, especially for a boy, Nyssa thought. Her brothers ate plenty, all the time, but Louis had eaten very small portions. Perhaps that was why the girl sitting beside him had also eaten so little and looked very hungry at the moment.

Though normally a person would have been a bit upset to have someone tell her that her family members had odd names, Nyssa was not, because she quite agreed. "They are. My grandmother named her sons after constellations. Her name's Asterope, a star."

"Don't the Malfoys do that?" Fred looked pointedly towards Scorpius when he said this, attracting James, Louis, and even Albus to do the same. Nyssa also looked towards Scorpius, but only because she hoped that she could catch his eye, send him a small smile maybe, if she could manage it. But he was talking to some older boys, smiling, obviously content to not be sharing the same house as Nyssa. She quickly turned around, angry that he was doing so well without her. It wasn't right to feel that way, she knew, but Scorpius was the only person she really knew well and she thought they'd hit off well in the last few weeks, yet he was doing fine without her while she was not.

"The Blacks do," Albus said, surprising Nyssa, because he had barely spoken this whole time. "We've seen the tapestry, haven't we, James?" James nodded at his younger brother. "And the Malfoys are related to the Blacks. Dad said all the pure-blood families are related."

"Mostly," Nyssa responded.

"You're pure-blood then?" Louis asked, the other three boys giving her a look that her they were clearly interested to know her blood status themselves. It was foreign to her. She'd grown up around pure-bloods, sometimes been around half-bloods, knew only one muggle-born wizard, and hardly ever seen muggles. The subject of blood status only came up when her grandmother went on one of her long spiels about pure-bloods being better witches and wizards, or had Nyssa and her cousins recite all the pure-bloods off the family tapestry. It was never a question back home, because everyone knew her and what family she came from.

"My great-grandfather was Regulus Black, son of Sirius Black –" she did not finish her sentence, as Albus' voice spoke over hers.

"And Hesper Gamp." He was staring at her, but quickly realizing that he had just interrupted her mid-sentence, began to apologize, "Sorry, it's just, I've seen the names on the tapestry. My dad's godfather was a Black as well."

"Why aren't you on the Black family tapestry then?" This was James, now digging into a whole chocolate pie. Dessert had arrived, Nyssa supposed, sometime during their conversation. There were now many pies, puddings, and chocolates in front of her, but she already felt full and had to regretfully stop herself from reaching for a piece of strawberry pie.

"My great-grandfather only had one child, a daughter, and that was my grandmother, Asterope. She married my grandfather, Thane Valentine. I think we're not on the tree, because the Black line ended with my great-grandfather in my family." At least, that was her explanation. They certainly had not been burned off the tree, as her grandmother was not a squib, blood-traitor, or anything disgraceful according to the laws of the family. That her grandfather had been without an heir, she knew, was something that had made her grandmother's life more difficult than it would have been. Because she had no brother, it was necessary that she marry into an equally respectable pure-blood family. It was a random twist of fate that she had gone to Salem Witches' Institute, being a British-born witch, and then later met her future husband at one of the annual school dances.

The four boys seemed to accept her explanation, all eating desserts that Nyssa wished she'd saved room for now. It was at this moment that the girl with black hair sitting next to her turned and spoke, "Hello, my name's Eleanor Northwood."

Surprised that the girl was speaking to her, Nyssa had to reign in her overwhelming urge to hug the girl and simply smiled back instead, "Nyssa Valentine."

"I know, I heard you talking, we all did," Eleanor turned her head to the other three girls sitting alongside her, all staring intently at Nyssa. "This is Deidra Griffin," said Eleanor, pointing to the girl right beside her with blue eyes and blonde hair, "Olivia Browne," the girl with black hair and brown eyes sitting beside Deidra waved at Nyssa, "and Holly Connolly," a girl with a light brown mess of curls and grey eyes waved vigorously, leaning around Olivia so that she could better see Nyssa.

"I'm a half-blood myself," said Holly, very enthusiastically, giving Nyssa the impression that she was a happy-go-lucky type of person. "My dad's a wizard and my mum's a muggle."

"Muggle-born," Deidra said silently, making Nyssa wonder if Deidra thought she was prejudice towards muggle-borns. "My mum and dad were shocked. They never believed in magic, until recently."

"Half-blood," Olivia said with a shrug when Nyssa looked at her, "My dad was a half-blood and my mum's muggle-born."

"And I'm muggle-born like Deidra, though my uncle was a muggle-born too, so there was already magic in the family. It wasn't much of a shock, really, though I think my younger brother will be very disappointed if he doesn't get a letter." Eleanor's expression, however, said that she would not be disappointed. Her brother was annoying and she didn't treasure the thought of seeing him almost every day at Hogwarts when she'd already done so for the past eleven years.

Tapping her spoon against her now empty plate – she'd just eaten three slices of apple pie – Holly's twitching lips told the other girls that she was itching to speak. "I'm so excited to start learning spells! It's not like that muggle garbage hocus pocus stuff, mind you, Deidra. Real magic is much more exciting!" At the comment directed towards her, Deidra rolled her eyes and turned away from Holly, obviously displeased that the girl thought she had not already learned a bit about how _real_ magic worked.

A sudden shout from Olivia garnered looks from other nearby students, heads whipping around wildly as other similar shouts came from around the hall. Ghosts had popped up at each of the four tables, frightening the students they either appeared beside or went through. Nyssa shivered at the thought of having a ghost go through you, knowing from what Tristan had said that they were as cold as Siberia. The ghost beside Olivia was pearly white and semi-transparent, dressed in a doublet with a large ruff, tights, and a pair of breeches; he had long curly hair, a moustache and goatee, and was wearing an extravagant hat bearing a feather atop his head.

"Hello, there, Nick," Fred called to the ghost, still chuckling over the reaction from the first years to the ghosts, along with several of the older students.

Nick, the ghost, bowed to Fred. "And hello to you, young Mr. Weasley." He moved to the other side of the table, causing the girl that had been sitting beside Louis to shove the people next to her down in an effort to get as far as possible from the ghost. "I am Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, the ghost of Gryffindor tower."

"Or Nearly Headless Nick," added James.

"I prefer Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington," said Nick stiffly, sending a frown to the young Potter.

"Nearly headless?" A chubby boy on the other side of Albus asked. He looked quickly to his empty plate when Nick turned to him.

"Yes," answered the airy voice from Nick, as the ghost pulled on his left ear, his whole head falling onto his shoulders, not falling completely off due to a thin piece of skin and tissue still attached on the left side of his head. There were squeaks from the girls, all quickly covering their eyes, and mumbled awes from the boys, while most of the older students chose to simply ignore the event. Nick flipped his head back over, seemingly pleased with the reactions, cleared his throat, and said, "I do hope you'll all work hard this year. The Ravenclaws won the house cup last year and the Grey Lady's become rather haughtier than usual."

"Don't worry, Nick," said James proudly, "we're sure to win this year!"

"Do try," Nick said and then floated away, going through Fred and the chubby boy next to Albus, who yelped loudly when it happened. With Nick gone, Nyssa delved into a conversation on future lessons with her newly acquainted roommates ("I'm dreading potions," said Olivia; "Charms should be interesting", Holly shouted enthusiastically, Nyssa and Eleanor agreeing with head nods).

When the desserts had finally disappeared, the Headmistress stood up once again. The hall fell quiet much the same as it was during the sorting. "Before I let you all head to bed, I have a few notices to deliver. First years should remember and older students need be reminded that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all." Her eyes circled the room, and Nyssa noted that a few – notably the trio in front of her – averted their eyes. "Mr. Filch requested that I stress the rule against performing magic in the corridors. Quidditch trials will, as always, be held in the second week of the term. If you are interested in playing for your house, you may speak to Madam Hooch," she held out a hand towards an elderly witch with spiky hair, "and she will inform you of the requirements."

"I'm trying out this year," declared James.

"And now," continued the Headmistress, "let's sing the school song!" One of the professor's at the table, a very short man, stood and flicked his wand upwards, little streams of green, red, blue, and gold shooting out, forming words above their heads. All the older students started to sing and, after the first few lines, Nyssa and all the other first years joined in:

_Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, _

_Teach us something, please, _

_Whether we be old and bald _

_Or young with scabby knees, _

_Our heads could do with filling _

_With some interesting stuff, _

_For now they're bare and full of air, _

_Dead flies and bits of fluff, _

_So teach us things worth knowing, _

_Bring back what we've forgot, _

_Just do your best, we'll do the rest, _

_And learn until our brains all rot._

Everyone finished the songs at different times; some went through it very quickly, others slowly, some shouting instead of singing, friends swaying together as they sung it to a Christmas tune. A few of the professors clapped as the last few students finished, though Nyssa thought that from the expression on their faces it was more out of joy that the song was finished than for the fact that the students had sung the school song well.

"That was lovely," the headmistress beamed at them all, "Off to bed with you then."

The red-haired girl James had pointed out as Lucy, their cousin, came walking towards all the first years, calling loudly, "First years, line up and follow me!" There was a brown-haired boy behind her, a shiny gold 'P' on his chest, the same as Lucy.

"Lucy's a Prefect," James muttered to Nyssa as they stood, "she's a bit bossy."

Nyssa had no idea what a prefect was, but figured it must've been some high position among the students, giving her the power to keep the younger students in check. James, Louis, and Fred snickered at the first years as they followed Lucy and the boy out of the Great Hall and up a marble staircase to the left. As they climbed the stairs, that one boy that had sat beside Albus tripping on his robes and forcing them to stop more than once, Nyssa stared at all the portraits whispering around them. Twice they had to go through doorways hidden behind hanging tapestries and sliding panels, climbing and climbing several flights of stairs. Many students were now yawning, just barely able to lift their feet onto step after step due to the tired feeling that had come over all of them. Finally, they stopped climbing stairs, reaching a long corridor.

"It's just ahead," the brown-haired prefect called back reassuringly to them, pointing towards the end of the corridor, where a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink dress hung.

"Password?" She asked, looking down upon Lucy.

"Nargles," she responded and the portrait swung open, revealing a hole in the wall. They all had to climb through, the shortest students needing help climbing up by the brown-haired prefect (Nyssa was one of them). Crawling out on the other side of the hole, they found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, which was round and full of old squashy armchairs.

Lucy turned around to face them all, raising right arm and pointing up to a wooden door that was on everyone else' left, "Take the stairs to reach the boy's dormitories. The first year dormitory will be clearly marked with a sign." Similarly, she raised her left arm and pointed to the opposite wooden door, "The girl's dormitories are up this staircase and as with the boy's dormitories the first year dormitory is marked with a sign. No boys are allowed into the girl's dormitories."

The brown-haired prefect led the boys off to their dormitory, while Lucy led the girls through the wooden door. Olivia gave out an exasperated sigh at the sight of more staircases. At the top of the spiral staircase, there were seven different ones in the room and they had taken the first, they found their dorm, gold letters reading: 'First-Year Girl's Dormitory'. Inside the room were five four-poster beds with deep red, velvet curtains.

Nyssa was surprised to find her trunk already in the room, having wondering briefly before they entered the boats and on their way up to the common room where it could possibly be. She also did not know where Artemas was, but having already been assured in a letter from the school that she would be allowed to bring him and they had someone to take care of him, she did not let it bother her. Feeling very drowsy, she dug through her trunk for a nightgown, slipped it on in the bathroom, washed her face, and curled up in her bed for a nice long sleep.

As her eyes closed and blackness enveloped her, she wondered briefly were the Ravenclaw dorm was and how Scorpius was doing right now. She hoped to see him the next day, having forgotten her pettiness over him being chummy with his housemates at dinner. Her roommates all silent, she fell off into sleep, dreaming of a werewolf running towards the train as she sat watching with a blue-haired boy. A blaze of green light shot out, killing the werewolf, and she cried.

* * *

**Fourth chapter!**

**I noticed that a reviewer (Tom), found that the prologue was a bit confusing. Yes, I suppose it is, since no one but me knows why it is important. But I do promise to explain it later on, as it is significant to later events (much later events, in fact). **

**As always, I ask that you please review and tell me your thoughts on the chapter! **


	6. Buds of Friendship

**I've been without internet for the last few days, thus I had no means of posting this chapter. I do love the reviews I've gotten so far, as they help me understand what you all (the readers) are thinking while reading this. Yes, the current chapters are moving along slowly. They are helping me to set up the background and dynamics for the plot, which, I promise, will kick off soon. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

_Buds of Friendship_

By the time Nyssa awoke the next morning, Holly, Deidra, and Olivia had already left to go down for breakfast. She didn't know how they managed to wake up so early and be so eager to move about, considering she still felt tired. When she told this to Eleanor, the girl mumbled an agreement, having just rolled out of bed herself; her long black hair a mess of tangles and hanging in her eyes as she headed to the bathroom to splash her face with water.

Once both girls were dressed in their robes and as awake as they could manage (Eleanor was still rubbing her eyes when they headed down the staircase into the common room), they set off for the Great Hall. It was unfortunate for them that both had managed to forget after only one night the way they got to the Gryffindor dormitories, and thus had no idea how to get back down to the Great Hall. To further make their first morning a difficult one, one of the staircases they were standing on moved, taking them to another long corridor. After several failed attempts with similar staircases and one door that was really only a wall, they ran into an older Ravenclaw boy who led them down the staircases and into the Great Hall. They thanked him and quickly ran over to the Gryffindor table, finding open seats in front of Olivia, Holly, and Deidra.

"Thanks for leaving us behind," Eleanor said sarcastically, shoveling eggs onto the plate in front of her.

"We tried to wake you," Olivia assured them, buttering a piece of toast while looking over a piece of parchment in her left hand, "but you," she pointed the butter knife in her hand at Eleanor, "were in a deep sleep and Nyssa seemed to be having a nightmare."

"Was I?" Nyssa glanced at the three girls curiously, taking a bit of the strawberry bagel she'd just put cream cheese on. She didn't remember having a nightmare, though it wouldn't surprise her; she'd often had nightmares as a child and spent many nights in her parent's bed due to them. Shrugging it off as nothing, she changed the topic, "Did you three manage to find your way down easily?"

Deidra looked pointedly at Holly, who was too busy eating sausages and muffins to talk at the moment, "_Someone_ wanted to find the way herself. We ended up in the dungeons, I think, and were lucky enough to have a Slytherin prefect kindly escort us back up." Her narrowed eyes, still looking at Holly, told Nyssa that she was holding a grudge against the girl for the unforeseeable future for having led them astray.

"What's that your holding, Olivia?" Eleanor asked between chewing up and swallowing large bites of eggs. There was a piece of egg on her chin, which Nyssa thought to tell her, but worried it would only draw attention from others that might laugh. As luck would have it, the next time the fork met her mouth, the small piece of egg fell from her chin and onto the table, only to vanish seconds later, which puzzled Nyssa greatly.

Looking up from the parchment, Olivia turned it around to show Eleanor and Nyssa. "It's our class schedule. Professor Longbottom," she looked towards the professor that had escorted them to the sorting the previous night, "he's our Head of House. He'll give you yours in a bit."

Sure enough, spotting the two girls, the cheery professor headed towards them, two pieces of parchment in hand. "Morning, girls," he greeted them, to which both Eleanor and Nyssa responded with a meek 'Good morning, Professor', causing the man to laugh. "Not morning people?" They both shook their heads. "Ah, well, you'll get used to it. Here are your class schedules," he handed Eleanor a piece of parchment, then Nyssa. "If you get lost or need help finding a class, just ask a professor or one of the older students. The ghosts like to help out as well." With another nod from the two girls, he chuckled once more and walked off.

"Nice, isn't he?" commented Holly, looking up for the first time from her food to the other girls. At the rate she was eating, you would think she never ate at all. Nyssa secretly thought that she would definitely be leaving a few pounds heavier at the end of the school year.

Deidra took out her own class schedule from a pocket inside her robes, "I have Transfiguration first."

"History of Magic," said Eleanor, laying her head against the table. "I'm going to fall back asleep in that class for sure."

"Charms," Holly grinned brightly, brandishing her wand and swishing it around aimlessly in the air.

Swallowing a large gulp of orange juice, Olivia whipped her mouth with the back of her hand, "Transfiguration as well."

"Charms," Nyssa gave a small smile to Holly, who was now looking at her much too eagerly. The look on the girl's face told Nyssa she was already picturing the two of them partnering up in class, but Nyssa was determined to find any partner but Holly. It was mean, she realized, not to want to be partners with the girl, but Nyssa was afraid she'd end up injured, because Holly seemed the type to be overly-dramatic when it came to performing spells.

After breakfast, they had a short fifteen minute break, which they all used to find their classrooms. Olivia wondered aloud to them all before they split up why they weren't taking classes at the same times; she was under the impression that houses always took classes together and supposed it must have been some new initiative to support more inter-house friendships rather than just house friendships. Nyssa agreed, though she couldn't say whether it was true or not, having no knowledge of the workings of the school here. When the five broke off to go to their respective classrooms, Nyssa was stuck with the chatterbox that was Holly and was very glad when they reached the classroom – without any mishaps, thankfully, due to a Hufflepuff prefect giving them directions – and she was able to slip away from Holly, towards the other students.

"Nyssa," a boy's voice called to her. Turning, she saw Scorpius approaching with two other first year Ravenclaw boys. They all looked rather chummy, and Nyssa found herself wishing that Eleanor were here, as she was really the only girl she'd made any progress with in regards to friendship so far. "Sleep well?" He asked, stopping in front of her, the other two boys staring, waiting for Scorpius to introduce her to them.

"I had a nightmare," she responded, which was true, though she couldn't remember it. It was odd how dreams worked, really. She'd heard two older witches discussing them once when her mom took her for a yearly check-up at Gregoir's Memorial Hospital (it was hidden inside an abandoned warehouse). One of the witches told the other that muggle doctors said our dreams reflected events from the day, though the other said that her grandmother had told her our dreams revealed secrets about ourselves. If the second theory was true, Nyssa was curious to know what secret those dreams about her eating assorted food she'd had over the years revealed about her.

Scorpius ignored this comment, whether it was because he thought she was being sarcastic or simply did not feel the need to say something about her having a nightmare, she didn't know. "This is Asher Zabini," he inclined his head towards the handsome brown-haired boy to his left, "and Jonathan Gray," the boy on his right with dirty blonde hair, freckles, and dark brown eyes smiled at her.

"And this," Scorpius gestured towards Nyssa, "is Nyssa Valentine. She's a Gryffindor, as you can see."

"There's nothing wrong with being in Gryffindor," came a comment from behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, Nyssa could see Albus Potter slowly coming into view. His hair looked like he had not combed it all, but it had also looked the same the night before. He was staring at Scorpius, and Scorpius stared back for a few moments, before replying.

"No, there isn't. I never said there was."

Albus' cheeks reddened, probably because he felt that he'd been too aggressive jumping into the conversation the way he did, when Scorpius may have only been joking. It had created an awkward silence between the five students and Nyssa was immensely grateful when the professor, the same short one that had made the words for the school song appear the night before, showed up and let them all into the classroom. Quickly, she found a spot near one of the bottom rows of half-circle tables on either side of the room. Scorpius sat on her right side, heaving his back on top the table, and Albus on her left, glancing to Scorpius while taking out his Charms book and wand.

Nyssa sighed, feeling like a barrier between the two (though happy Holly was not able to sit beside her), but pushed away the feeling when class began, offering her full attention to the little Professor. He had long white hair and a matching beard, wore rich blue robes, and had to stand on a tall pile of shaky books to look over the students.

"Welcome to Charms. My name is Professor Flitwick." he smiled around the classroom, only to be greeted by many groggy groans of 'Hello' instead of a warm 'Hello'. "Charms is the best class, in my opinion. We will start off with the simpler spells for the first year, working our way up to the difficult ones in the years to follow. Unlike Transfiguration, which you will all take later today, we use charm spells to change what an object does instead of what it looks like. For example," he whipped his wand forward, pointing a tea cup sitting on the podium in front of him. He flicked his wand upwards and the tea cup started to dance a jig across the podium, stopping when Professor Flitwick flicked his wand again. "Today, we will start practicing the Levitation charm. Turn to page ten in your textbooks," the students all did as they were told, "and repeat after me: Wingardium Leviosa."

There was a varying murmur of voices all trying very hard to pronounce the words just Professor Flitwick had. "Very good," he said, pointing his wand to a cabinet that opened and revealed several stacks of feathers. With another flick of his wrist, they were sent flying out of the cabinet, one landing in front of each student. "Now," he turned back to the class, "I want you to give a little flick of the wrist – you can look at the demonstrations in the book – and shout Wingardium Leviosa."

There was a flurry of shouts of the incantation, wrists flicking wildly. Professor Flitwick was traveling round the room, narrowly avoiding a wand that was accidently thrown in his direction when one girl flicked her wrist too hard, assisting students with their pronunciation and the movement of their hands. Scorpius, Nyssa notice, had yet to move his wrist or say the incantation, and was still reading the page. On her other side, Albus was doing the same, though practicing flicking his wrist the way the pictures in the book showed.

"Wingardium Leviosa," she mumbled repeatedly to herself, staring intently at the feather in front of her. Slowly, she flicked her wrist upwards, then quickly looked back down to page ten in her charms book to check that it was as it was supposed to be. Confirming for herself that she seemed to be doing it as it was depicted, she took a deep breath, pointed her wand at the feather, and simultaneously flicked her wrist while saying, "Windgardium Leviosa." The feather swayed slightly on the desk, so she tried again, and it moved towards her instead of up in the air. Thinking that she wasn't putting enough force behind the incantation, she cleared her throat and tried this time with a firmer voice, "Wingardium Leviosa!" And the feather floated upwards, Nyssa staring in awe at the magic she had just performed, tilting her wand slightly upwards to watch the feather move up and then down for it to fall down again.

The sound of little hands clapping suddenly greeted her, Professor Flitwick walking towards her with a huge grin. "Good work, Ms. Valentine, very good work! Five points to Gryffindor!" Nyssa beamed at this, she had just earned her house five points. "If you will, please help Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy." And off he trotted, going back to a student that was energetically shaking his wand side to side, poking a student next to him in the eyeball in the process.

Nyssa looked to Scorpius, who was still studying his charms book, and then to Albus, who was muttering to himself and flicking his wrist at the feather that lay still in front of him. Neither boy looked to want her help or to have even acknowledged the words of Professor Flitwick.

"I don't need your help," Scorpius grumbled, now practicing flicking his wrist at the feather, "help Potter instead."

Nyssa watched Albus look up from his feather, narrowing his eyes at Scorpius and sneering, "I don't need her help either, Malfoy."

A few moments later, both Albus and Scorpius had managed to work the spell on their own, each receiving congratulations from Professor Flitwick, who was missing half of his left eyebrow – he'd been standing very close to Holly when she accidently blew up her feather, also scorching her robes. It was not long after this incident that class ended and the students piled out of the classroom, setting off for their next classes. According to her schedule, Nyssa's next class was Transfiguration; she wondered whether she might run into Olivia and Deidra along the way.

She passed by James in one long corridor, who was staring down at the same piece of parchment he'd been passing around the night before. He looked up at her when he passed, though she did not know how he managed to realize she was there and avoid people while staring at paper. A short distance further, she heard him give a shout of 'Albus!' and supposed that the boy must not have been far behind her. Upon reaching the Transfiguration classroom, she was delighted to see Eleanor standing outside, hand over her mouth to cover a loud yawn.

"Eleanor," she called to the girl, running to stand beside her.

Eleanor looked back at Nyssa, her eyes widening in surprise, "We've got Transfiguration together?"

"Looks like it."

"Fantastic!" Eleanor was beaming, the sleepiness that had just been present on her face vanishing slowly. She must have noticed Nyssa chuckling lightly at her present expression, "Just wait until you have History of Magic. You'll fall asleep too."

"Doubtful. I love history," Nyssa commented, scuttling into the classroom as the door opened, scanning the room quickly to find a good spot. Unfortunately, she and Eleanor had been near the back of the queue of students and most of the tables near the door – far from the professor's desk – were already occupied. She spied a table with two empty seats in the second row from the professor's desk, tugged on Eleanor's sleeve, and led the girl with her to the table. The students all sat chatting for a short while, until the frog sitting on the desk transformed into a tall, fair-haired man. There were several gasps of shock from the students, but the man simply grinned at them all.

"Welcome to Transfiguration. I am Professor Keanes, a former Hufflepuff myself," he gave a wink to the golden yellow-robbed students, "and your Transfiguration professor for the next five years or seven, if you do well enough on your Transfiguration OWL." Nyssa had turned to Eleanor to ask what an OWL was, but the Professor continued speaking, waving off her question for now. "You needn't worry about those now though. No, for now, I only want you to focus on what I teach you this school year. Transfiguration is a very difficult and precise art, and if you discover you have the talent for it, you will be able to do wondrous things with it, such as turning into an animal." He gave them another bright grin, referencing his own feat earlier. "Now, let's get down to business, shall we? Take out your textbooks and turn to page five, please."

The lesson went well enough, and Eleanor found that she quite liked Transfiguration. Nyssa was happy that she liked it, because she felt that when it came to Transfiguration, she herself was destined to have a particular lack of talent. Having a friend that was proficient in a subject she was deficient in was a lucky thing, she felt. Upon exiting the classroom, Eleanor grimaced, saying that she had left her favorite quill in the History of Magic classroom. Nyssa watched her sprint off, shouting as she went that someone had better not have stolen the quill.

A tap on her shoulder made Nyssa jump, frightened from the sudden touch, and she spun on her heel quickly to see who it was that had snuck up on her. The bushy red-haired Rose Weasley was smiling at her, clutching a bag stuffed with books to her chest. "I saw you in the classroom but didn't have a chance to say hello."

"You were in Transfiguration with me?" Nyssa had not noticed Rose at all. She couldn't have been in front of her; Nyssa would have noticed her hair out of the crowd easily.

Rose nodded, "I came in a bit late, though. You were all in the middle of reading from the textbook and I sort of just quietly dragged a chair to the side of one of the back tables. I don't think the boys that were already sitting there liked that very much." She frowned at the memory of this ordeal, distraught that she had already managed to be late to one of her classes on the first day. It was luck that Professor Keanes had not noticed, but she still knew that she had been late and it was weighing on her conscious. "Oh, I wish we were given a map. I was lost, that's why I was late."

Nyssa could understand this. She had been lost first thing this morning and told Rose this, also mentioning that she had only found the Charms classroom with the help of an older student. The fact that Nyssa was also having trouble finding her way around the confusing school relieved Rose. They talked for a short while, both having a short break before lunch. Rose showed Nyssa where the History of Magic classroom was ("Professor Binns is brilliant, of course, but his voice is, well, you'll see.") and in turn Nyssa took Rose to the Charms classroom ("Professor Flitwick is a funny little man. He gave me five points for getting the spell right!"). A bell chimed twice, signaling lunch time, and the two girls headed to the Great Hall. When they arrived, several students had already piled in, many, the two noticed, sitting at the tables' of houses that were not their own. Sharing a glance, they both headed for the Ravenclaw table, chatting happily about the day so far and what lessons they were most excited for.

"I'm looking forward to Potions. Teddy says its rubbish, but I think that's only because he didn't do very well."

Nyssa agreed with this Teddy, whoever he was, having already peeked at her Potions book and quickly closed it once she'd read the bit about how careful and consistent you had to be when making the potions, not to mention having to cut up ingredients, and she already knew that she was horrible when it came to making things look straight or even. "Who's Teddy?" She asked, hoping to avoid a discussion on the dreadful subject that was Potions.

"Teddy Lupin, my Uncle Harry's godson. He's like another family member, really." She dipped her spoon into the bowl of potato soup, lifting it back up to reveal a small lump of potato soaked in a creamy sauce. "He and Victoire, my cousin, just started dating. I didn't know they liked each other at all, so it's a bit strange, but I'm happy they're together."

"Victoire is very pretty," Nyssa said lightly, considering this new information on 'Teddy'. He was not a _real_ family member to the Weasleys or Potters, but was embraced by them anyway. It struck her as strange that she felt the urge to be treated the same; she doubted her family would treat a stranger, godson/goddaughter or not, as a family member, especially if the individual was not of pureblood ancestry.

"You know Victoire?"

"No, James pointed her out to me. She's in Ravenclaw, right?"

"You know _James_?"

From the tone in Rose's voice when she'd said James' name, Nyssa could only interpret that the boy was some sort of troublemaker. Perhaps Rose thought that James would have given her a bad impression of her family, but Nyssa personally thought that the ones she knew so far were not so bad. They were a normal family, much friendlier than hers at least. "I met him, Fred, and Louis last night. Albus, too, but we'd already met on the train."

Rose stared at her, dropping her spoon into the bowl full of potato soup (it landed with a loud plop) and gasping simultaneously. "You're the girl from the train." Nyssa raised her eyebrows. "You are. Oh, James did so pick on Albus for that. He shouldn't have said it around him, honestly."

"Does James often pick on Albus?"

"Of course," Rose said this as if it were common knowledge. It was likely that it was such among their family, just as everyone that was not purposely turning a blind eye in Nyssa's family knew that Lacerta and Nyssa did not get along well. "Did Albus really fall on you?" It seemed that Rose was not quite ready to let go of the train incident.

"Yes, but it wasn't intentional. The train jerked and neither of us were looking ahead to watch out for others. He apologized, of course." This was the truth, though she suspected were it to be passed 'through the grapevine', the story would become quite twisted. There was a high possibility one of the three boys from the night before had already written home about the matter, misconstruing what had really happened. "He seems very nice."

"Albus? Yes, he's always been quite friendly. Takes after Uncle Harry, mum says."

"Your Uncle's very nice then?" The food was starting to disappear, Nyssa noted, and frowned when her half-eaten sweet potato disappeared. She wasn't finished and thought that they had plenty of time left, but having been talking the whole time, she supposed the time must have slipped by without her noticing.

Rose frowned at the empty space on the table where her soup had sat, "Yes, very kind. I suppose we'll need to learn to eat quicker." Nyssa quietly agreed, wishing she had stuffed an extra biscuit in her pocket for a snack later on. "Shall we head to our next classes?"

"We shall," Nyssa replied jokingly, not at all used to the rather proper sounding use of 'shall'. She stood, walking out of the hall with Rose. They both headed off in the same direction; the History of Magic classroom was off a corridor to the right before the Charms classroom. Reaching said corridor, the two girls bid each other farewell until dinner.

Nyssa was distressed to see that the only person in her History of Magic class for the rest of the year she recognized was the boy that Scorpius had introduced earlier, Asher Zabini. He was standing silently against the wall, watching the other chattering first-years. Calling on her natural confidence, Nyssa walked up to the handsome boy. "Hello. Asher, right? Scorpius introduced us."

Asher stared at her. "How do you know Scorpius? He wouldn't say much about you."

"Our families know each other. I stayed at his house for the last part of the summer, with my parents." She scuffed her shoe at the floor, avoiding eye contact with Asher. He was very direct, something she was not used to, and it made her feel a bit intimidated.

"You're pure-blood then." Nyssa nodded slowly. "So am I. Nice to meet you," he held out his hand to her, and though she found it more of an adult-like thing to do (James Potter had also wanted to shake hands, she remembered), she shook it.

"Nice to meet you too."

The door to the History of Magic classroom creaked open, scaring a few students when they heard the loud noise from the door. Nyssa had not noticed it before, but the door did seem to be quite older than those leading into her other two classrooms today. She thought that it might have been older to show symbolic meaning, history being a subject which delves into the past. The students piled into the classroom by twos, Nyssa and Asher walking in side by side. They seated themselves at one of the very front tables, much to Asher's displeasure.

It was after they were seated and Nyssa was searching the room for the Professor that she spotted a ghost. It was an older man, ancient and shriveled looking; he wore small, thick glasses and was standing behind a podium, staring apathetically at them all. Not long after that, when he introduced himself as Professor Binns, was it that Nyssa understood what Rose meant by warning her about his voice. It was monotone, droning on and on like the buzzing of bees, making it quite difficult for even a lover of History such as Nyssa to avoid blocking him out or, like most of the students, dropping her head to the table and falling asleep. With regret, she agreed in her thoughts with Asher when he said he was glad the class was over once they were leaving the classroom.

Asher bid her goodbye, heading off for Transfiguration, he said; before Nyssa had been able to relay directions to said classroom, he was gone. With a shrug of her shoulders, Nyssa turned, hoping that she would find a fellow student along the way to tell her where exactly the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was. It was not an older she ended up running into, but Rose, who was walking with her cousin Victoire. The bushy-haired girl ran up to Nyssa, asking what class she had next and letting out a little squeal of joy when Nyssa said DADA, because Rose also had that next.

Nyssa said a polite 'Hello' to Victoire and received one along with a brilliant smile back, and Rose told her that Victoire was showing her the way to the DADA classroom. The DADA classroom was farthest away from the Great Hall than all the other classes so far. Victoire said goodbye to the two first-year girls, kindly inviting them to come to the library afterwards, as that was where she would be. Soon after the older girl had walked off, from around a corner came Scorpius and Albus, laughing together over something one of them had said.

While she was glad to see the tension from earlier had disappeared, Nyssa wondered just when during Scorpius and Albus had become so chummy. It was certainly a very quick change. The two spotted her and Rose, joining them in waiting outside the classroom.

"You two are getting along better," Nyssa said, looking between the two.

Scorpius scoffed, "I don't know what you mean, Nyssa. Potter and I despise each other."

"Yes, I absolutely loath Malfoy," added Albus, grinning at Scorpius.

Nyssa rolled her eyes at the charade, used to such antics from her brothers. Instead, she turned to Rose, "Did Victoire really mean for us to come to the library afterwards or was she just being polite? I mean, she would probably rather be around her friends than two first years."

Rose shook her head, eyeing the duo that was Scorpius and Albus, "No, she meant it. I don't think she has that many friends."

"Why not?"

"Victoire has veela blood. Her mum's a quarter veela. It attracts boys, you know, and most girls are jealous of that, I think," Rose was apprehensive when she said the last bit, obviously not sure if it really was because of jealousy that most other girls shunned Victoire.

Nyssa could understand the jealousy, but felt angry that other girls could be so mean to the kind Victoire. You cannot help what blood status you are born into, just like Victoire could not help that she was born with Veela blood. It was wrong to discriminate against her. "But what about Victoire's sister? Does she have many friends?" She remembered James pointing to the blonde-haired Hufflepuff Dominique, and that he said she was Victoire's sister, just as Louis was her brother.

"I'm not sure," and Rose gave a short shrug to emphasize her words, "Perhaps the veela blood isn't as strong in her. Louis' isn't that strong either." Rose turned as the sound of a door opening reached their ears, "Looks a bit squeamish, doesn't he?"

She was referring to the man that had opened the door. He was tall, mousy brown-haired with brown eyes and sported a scruffy beard on his chin. His robes were not fastened at the top and his hair was disheveled, as if he'd just now rolled out of bed. He waved them all into the classroom wearily and closed the door as the last student stepped over the threshold. Though he did not tell them to sit, they all took a seat (Nyssa and Rose sat together, and Albus and Scorpius behind them) while he slowly strode down the middle aisle between the rows of tables, making his way to the desk in the very front.

"My name is Professor Dennis Creevey," his voice was croaky and he cleared it a few times, took a sip of water, and then continued. "In this class I will teach you how to defend yourself against the Dark Arts, Dark Creatures, and Charms. Why do you need to be able to defend yourself?" His glazed eyes traveled around the room, boring into the students. "You may think you are, because Voldemort was defeated so long ago. Do you think that means all dark wizards and creatures have vanished?" Again, his eyes traveled the room and a significant number of students were by now pushing their chairs as far away from the creepy Professor as possible. "Then you are a fool. Dark magic still exists and there will always be those who use it. You must be prepared to defend yourself at all times. And so I will teach you how."

Rose made to reach for her textbook, but Professor Creevey caught her in the act, "There will be no need for your textbooks today." Rose removed her hand from her rucksack and sat back up in her chair, sharing a brief glance with Nyssa.

"I'm going to start you off with something practical, the Verdimillious Charm. Does anyone know what the capabilities of this charm are?"

Rose raised her hand beside Nyssa, but the Professor's did not choose her. "Yes, Mr.?"

"Potter, sir. Albus Potter."

For a very brief moment, the Professor's eyes widened in surprise, and he cleared his throat before speaking again, "Tell us, Mr. Potter. What does the Verdimillious Charm do?"

"It produces a green light, useful in duels and to reveal objects hidden by dark magic."

"Correct," he responded shortly, "When cast quickly, it will emit an electrical discharge at an opponent. If you move your wand like so," he withdrew his wand from his cloak, waving it around in a circular motion above his head, "and slowly say the incantation, an orb of energy will be thrown from your wand and illuminate the room or area you are in for a brief period of time."

And they all began practicing. There was a test dummy in a corner of the room that Professor Creevey had each of them step up to and practice casting quickly to emit an electrical discharge of green light. Only a few students were able to get a small green light to come from the tip, whereas Albus Potter was able to release a small streak of electrical energy that hit the dummy in the gut. This earned him a bright smile from the otherwise sullen Professor. They all practiced emitting a green orb of energy separately and Nyssa was happy to report that she was able to produce a very small orb of green light from her wand, because she had been unable to get any sort of electrical energy to come out and hit the dummy. Rose and Scorpius seemed to be having the most trouble working the charm, both only managing to elicit a spark from their wands.

It was a short lived triumph over the two come Friday, however, because both were excellent at Potions and Nyssa's skills in the art were dismal, to say the most.

* * *

**There you have it! How's my portrayal of Dennis?**

**Edit: No idea how it happened, but this chapter somehow got lost when I was making tiny revisions and replacing other chapters. Thank you so much, Guest, for informing of the missing chapter.**

**Please review and tell me your thoughts! **


	7. Letters at Breakfast

_Letters at Breakfast_

Nyssa and Rose had gone to the library after their first DADA lesson; Rose already knew the way, it was the first thing she had asked the Ravenclaw prefect, she told Nyssa. It was massive; rows of shelves, shelves on every part of the walls, books stacked on top of others on the shelves for lack of room. There was also an eerie silence about the library, though Nyssa noticed a group of students whispering quietly at a distance. They found Victoire sitting alone near steps that had a chain in front of them, bearing a sign that read 'Restricted Section'.

"Restricted section?" Nyssa mumbled to Rose, catching the attention of Victoire, whose head immediately shot upwards at the noise.

She shot a bright smile at the two, "We're lucky Madam Pince isn't here today." The two followed her gaze to an empty desk not very far away. "We wouldn't be able to talk if she were. Sit down," she gestured to the two empty chairs across from her, hand smoothing of the corner on the page of the book lying in front of her. "I hate it when people fold the corners."

Nyssa did not tell Victoire that she was one of those people who would fold the corner to mark the page she left off on if she did not have a bookmark or piece of paper nearby to stick in the book instead. Instead, she decided to ask about the book, "What's the book about?"

"It's a test-prep book for NEWT," she responded, digging through her rucksack and pulling out a bookmark. She placed it at the top of the page, very close to the spine, delicately shutting the book. "NEWT is an acronym for Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests. You'll take them in your seventh year."

"What about OWLs?" Rose asked which surprised Nyssa. She had thought that Rose would know all there was about what classes they would be taking and the tests they had to go through, considering her entire family had been to this school and she had several older cousins ahead of her here.

"Ordinary Wizarding Level, those you'll take in fifth year. It's a bit frightening going into them, but they aren't nearly as hard as NEWTs, though if you don't make an O in certain subjects, you cannot continue them in your sixth and seventh year, so your OWLs are important." Victoire was now attempting to stuff the large book into her rucksack that was already brimming with books. The sight of it made Nyssa dread her future fifth and seventh years, knowing already that she would probably be the loudest of all the future complainers about how much studying they would have to do. "Rose forgot to introduce us earlier. I'm Victoire Weasley," Victoire sent a small look of disapproval to Rose, who shrugged back.

"Nyssa Valentine," Nyssa responded, "pure-blood and resident American."

Victoire laughed; it was a light and melodic laugh. "Have many people asked you if you were American?"

"Not really," Nyssa said, thinking it was quite strange herself that there were not so many people asking now. Not even her professors had expressed surprise or asked when she responded to the roll call with her obviously different accent.

"Yes, probably not, seeing as the whole school already knows."

"James," Rose groaned.

"No, I think it was Fred, actually," Victoire corrected. "Roxanne told me, and if Molly found out, well, it's no wonder how the whole school did. Dominique wrote mum and dad last night, so the family probably knows by now as well. They definitely will once James has written Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny."

It appeared, from the conversation, that the Weasleys were very good at spreading information. Nyssa wasn't sure how she should feel about the whole school and the Weasley and Potter families knowing her nationality. They would know all about her before the end of the semester if she continued to hang around Albus and Rose, right down to her favorite foods. That would be strange as even her own family did not know her favorite foods; her mom always forgot that she hated tomatoes or that her favorite food in the whole world was probably chocolate, which was not a food to be eaten at every meal according to Cassia.

"Tell your family I said hello?" Nyssa asked uncertainly. She supposed if she was going to be written about, then she should say hello, somehow.

Victoire laughed again, Rose joining in this time as well. "If I do, mum will want to invite you over. Could you stand that? You'd have to spend even more time around James, Fred, and Louis."

"I can withstand it," Nyssa replied jokingly.

The three had a pleasant conversation before heading off to dinner, Victoire leaving them to join her only two friends that were girls at the Slytherin table; Nyssa and Rose decided to sit at the Gryffindor table for dinner. Nyssa introduced Eleanor to Rose, but was unable to introduce her other roommates as they were all at the other end of the table, chatting to some older boys. One of Rose's fellow Ravenclaws, Charlene Rhodes, came to sit with them too.

* * *

It was late afternoon one Friday in November and Nyssa had just burnt through her third cauldron in Potions. Scorpius and Albus had laughed uncontrollably and though Rose was patting Nyssa on the back and trying to reassure her that she could struggle through potions, she was having a hard time controlling her urge to laugh. Keenan, Nyssa's godfather, would have himself a row over this as well, though Nyssa reminded herself to write pleadingly for him not to tell her parents. If her parents were told, then her grandmother would be surely told, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of a Howler.

James Potter had already received a Howler from his parents for shooting off fireworks in the Great Hall at lunch one day with his cousin Louis and Rose had received a Howler from her dad during their first week, expressing his grievance over her not being sorted into Gryffindor, which sent Rose into a fit of tears. Her mother wrote to say that it had been a joke and that she had already 'punished' Rose's dad for his 'tactless bullying', though Nyssa did not know how bullying could be tactful.

"I can't believe how horrible you are at potions," Scorpius was still laughing, making it even more aggravating for Nyssa to hear this.

She twirled around to face him, causing him and Albus to stop before they ran straight into her. "Oh, and you're so good at Defense class, are you? You can't even work Lumos right."

"That's different," he argued. "How can you get mixed up with clear directions?"

"It's more than just reading directions! So I don't have the talent for potions! Can you stop laughing already?" She huffed, turned back around swiftly and set off for Hagrid's hut; Rose followed closely beside her, glancing back to Scorpius and Albus. Once she'd become close friends with Rose (it had only taken a week), the girl had introduced her to Hagrid, a friend of the Potter and Weasley families and also the Professor of Care of Magical Creatures.

Rose leaned over to Nyssa, "A bit moody today, aren't you?"

"Am I?" She asked in the same aggressive tone that she'd used with Scorpius, raising her voice an octave higher. It was true, she knew that she was on edge a bit more today than usual, though she didn't quite understand why. This was the second month in a row that she had a mood swing, though she was positive it was not because of '_that_' – it was due next week, after all. What irritated her most was seeing the Whomping Willow, a ferocious tree she and Rose had the misfortune to encounter a few weeks into the semester. It had attacked her, that stupid tree with its large branches. She's seen some odd initials on the tree too and briefly wondered, while being flung up in the air and then back down, who had gotten close enough to put them there. According to Madam Pomfrey, who, Nyssa told Rose, was getting on in age ("Nyssa, you're as bad as James!"), she was lucky she did not sustain greater injuries and the old witch warned her to stay away from the tree in the future.

They reached Hagrid's, Nyssa banging her fist on the wooden door to the hut repeatedly; Rose was trying to get her to stop, suggesting that Hagrid may not be at home at the moment. But the door did finally open, revealing the giant man, who beamed at the two of them and invited them inside. He offered them tea once they'd sat down, which they both accepted, though they refused his offer of any kind of food.

"Scorpius and Albus didn' come with yeh?"

"No, thankfully," Nyssa replied sourly, drinking the tea too fast, which resulted in some of it going down the wrong way.

As she coughed, Hagrid patted her back with his large hand, which Nyssa would have told him only made it worse if she could have stopped coughing long enough to get words out. "What's got yer feathers ruffled?"

"Nyssa's not doing so well in potions," Rose offered, seeing as Nyssa was still coughing and probably would have only given Hagrid a tart response she would regret later on.

"Burned through another cauldron, have yeh?" Hagrid chuckled, giving Nyssa one final pat on the back before letting her sit back up now that she was done coughing out her lungs. "Reminds me o' Teddy."

"Teddy Lupin?" Nyssa found out early on that Teddy Lupin was probably Hagrid's favorite recent student, seeing as the man often brought the older boy's name into conversations. "And does he have a good job now?" She turned to Rose.

"Teddy's currently undergoing Auror training. That's a good job. And you have to do well in Potions to become an Auror."

Hagrid patted Nyssa's head with his large hand, knocking her butt bone into the chair. She winced at the pain, but held her tongue from saying something rude. "Teddy got better. So will yeh, don' yeh worry."

The conversation then shifted into one of Nyssa parading her triumphs in DADA and Charms so far, not even mentioning other subjects, while Rose proudly told Hagrid all about how Professor Sinistra said she was better than her mother in Astronomy. And that was saying something as Rose's mom had been Professor Sinistra's top student prior. Nyssa even managed to get over her anger towards Scorpius and Albus enough to tell Hagrid how well Albus was doing in Transfiguration and DADA (she admitted he was better than her) and Scorpius in Potions and Herbology. Time drifted past like that and soon it was dinner time. They walked back to the castle with Hagrid, waving goodbye as he headed to the teacher's table and they sat at the Ravenclaw table with Victoire and her two friends.

The next morning at breakfast – they sat at the Gryffindor table with Albus and Scorpius – Eleanor and Charlene, the two had become very close friends, said 'hi' on their way to the Hufflepuff table just as the mail flew in. A barn owl flew in bearing three letters for Rose, as per usual, a snowy white one with two for Albus, a grey white-breasted owl bearing one letter for Scorpius, and, surprisingly, a large brown owl carrying two letters for Nyssa. It was surprising for Nyssa to get mail because her family lived so very far away and it took a while for the letters to get back and forth.

Eagerly, Nyssa ripped open the first letter, which was from her parents. From the handwriting, she could tell it was her mother who had written the letter, though she suspected her daddy had given his input here and there. It read:

_Dear Nyssa, _

_We miss you greatly. The pain of having you gone from home would be less were you closer, I believe. You'll be happy to hear that your siblings are doing well. Cassia wished us to inform you that you will soon be an aunt once again, as she is with child now. The mediwitch says it is twins, though Caius said she was most certainly wrong. Tristan has a girlfriend now. Her name is Flora Ames. You remember the Ames family, don't you? They had a son, your age that you used to play with. Andreus is off in Columbia doing something for the Government – he won't tell us what. It's secret, apparently. Ronan sends his love, and asks that you study your potions book more clearly. _

_Yes, Keenan has informed us that you have already burnt through two cauldrons. Why didn't you write us about it, sweetie? Your lack of skill in potions will make us love you no less than we already do. He says you are doing very well in Charms and your Defense class. You should know that we are proud of you, regardless of what class you do well in, though your father was rather happy to learn that Defense is one of your strong suits._

_We've discussed it, darling, and I'm afraid that we think it best you don't come all the way back home this Christmas. I'm going to write Keenan after this and I know he'll be delighted to have you stay, or if you'd prefer to stay in France with Alcina, I can arrange that. We are so very upset that we will not spend Christmas together. It will be our first apart, but your father and I agree that it would be better for you to stay near your school._

_Sending you lots of love,_

_Mom and Dad_

_PS: Write back this time, darling._

She folded the paper, placed it back in the envelope, and stuffed the enveloped into her robes. The others, she noticed, were smiling or laughing at their letters from home, whereas her letter was disappointing. She missed her family and was looking forward to seeing them again next month, but here were her parents, telling her not to come home. It seemed her family did not want her home. This was not true, she knew, but it did not stop the thought from swirling around her mind.

Swiping up the next letter, she noted that it was from Keenan. It probably contained words of joy over her coming stay over at his home during the holidays though Nyssa could not be happy at the moment that she would be spending the holidays with her godfather. She ripped open the top of the letter, not without a little difficulty, and read:

_My dearest goddaughter,_

_I suppose you've already read your mother's letter. You now know of my betrayal. I wrote to them of your troubles in potions class. Do forgive in ten minutes, won't you? I must also ask you to forgive me for refusing you staying over for the holidays. It would be best for you to go to France with Alcina. As much as I would love to have you stay, I've run into a spot of trouble and cannot risk putting you in harm's way because of my foolishness. You do understand, don't you love?_

_Sincerest apologies and all my love,_

_Keenan, your godfather_

All she needed now was a note from her godmother saying that she would also be unable to house Nyssa for the holidays and she'd be stuck on the streets of London for the winter. This was not likely to happen, of course, though she still thought of it bitterly. How dare they all shun her away, ending their letters stating that they loved her when they didn't even want her to be with them. Stuffing this letter in her robes as well, she turned to her friends, greeted with a bone-crushing hug by an ecstatic Rose.

"Mum's asked you to stay for the holidays! Say you'll come! Oh, please, Nyssa! It'll be so much fun!" The redhead did not release Nyssa from her vice-like grip, awaiting an answer before she would do so.

Nyssa looked to the faces of Albus and Scorpius, who were both watching the scene amusedly. It almost seemed like fate that Rose was begging her to stay at her place for the break when Nyssa had just been rejected by her own family and godfather – like something was drawing her to the Weasley family. Or maybe it was the Potter family, as they were related to the Weasleys. Fate or whatever, Nyssa did not care, put a smile on her face, and shouted loudly, "Of course I'll come!"

Rose released her from her grip then, taking out a piece of parchment to write her mother and say that Nyssa had accepted the offer and would be coming to their house for the break. She commented to Nyssa that she should tell her parents as well – Nyssa said she would – and said that they would probably feel very disheartened that Nyssa would not be coming home. Nyssa shrugged this off, saying that she would be home for the summer and they would just have to understand, deciding not to tell Rose that she was not wanted at home anyway.

Later, the four found themselves sitting near the lake underneath a bulky old oak tree. Rose was getting a jumpstart on the essay that was due next Wednesday for History of Magic on the goblin wars; Scorpius was reading a book about advanced Potions making; Albus toyed with a play snitch, releasing it and quickly re-catching it; and Nyssa laid on the grass writing letters informing her parents and godparents of where she would be spending her break.

It was during this peaceful time that Ambrosia Selwyn made her appearance, her little 'gang' consisting of Magnolia Wright, Seraphina Javi, and Evie Leach following closely behind. "Writing home to mummy and daddy, Valentine?" She called out to Nyssa mockingly.

Nyssa rolled her eyes at the sound of Ambrosia's voice. The two had gotten off on the wrong foot during a Flying lesson one day when Nyssa had told her it was depressing watching her try to fit her entire vocabulary into one sentence after she had made a rude remark to Rose about her lack of flying abilities, and the relationship between the two had only further deteriorated since. "What do you want, Selwyn? I don't feel like degrading you today."

Ambrosia scoffed, "You think you're so smart? I heard you're real bad at potions."

"And that's why I'll never forget the first time we met, though I keep trying," Nyssa responded sarcastically, tapping the parchment with her quill, leaving a dark circle, which kept getting bigger with the more taps she made. Perhaps her parents would see it as the metaphorical hole they had created in her heart.

"So high and mighty, Nyssa Valentine. But mummy and daddy don't want you home, do they?" Ambrosia snarled, looking triumphant when Nyssa stared up at her wide-eyed.

Somehow, though it was impossible, Ambrosia knew that Nyssa was told not to come home for break. How it was possible, Nyssa could not know, though she knew for sure that it was not because Ambrosia was a talented legilimens. Was there something happening to her family that Ambrosia knew and she didn't? She knew the Selwyn family was pure-blood as well, but had never met them and didn't know that her family kept in touch with them at all. Hesitantly, she replied, "It's so cute when you try to talk about things you don't understand. I'm writing my mom and dad to say that I'll be staying at Rose's for the break, thank you very much."

Rose glanced up at Nyssa from her essay, looking as if she wanted to say something, and Nyssa could feel Albus' eyes boring into the back of her head. There was no doubt that they had picked up on the hesitant response from Nyssa and were now wondering if Ambrosia's words were really the truth.

"You can pretend you don't know what I'm talking about Valentine, but I know things you don't," were the last words from Ambrosia before she walked off, her cronies following closely behind, leaving Nyssa wondering what it was that she knew.

"She doesn't know anything," Scorpius spoke up from behind her, not looking up from his book. She had found it strange that he did not look up, thinking that he was ignoring the situation, but it seemed that he had been secretly listening all along, not removing his book from in front of his face because he did not want to be involved.

'There's _nothing_ to know," Nyssa said pointedly, going back to her letter writing. That was true, she reassured herself, there was nothing going on that she did not know about – that her parents did not want her to know about. Ambrosia was lying knowing that it would irritate Nyssa; she did so love to do that. Everything was fine. Everything was normal.

Or so she thought.

* * *

Lyra paced back and forth across her marble kitchen floor, her right hand supporting her elbow so that she was able to cup her left hand beneath her mouth. It was a stance her father had often taken when something troublesome was occurring at work or her brother had forgotten to mention precisely when he would be home, she picked it up from him after having watched it so long. When she took this stance, it was not for the reasons of her father – she did not work nor did her children ever worry her as much as her brother did her father – her reasons for pacing and having her hand cupped underneath her mouth were only deadly situations. The night Samuel had died, when Ronan was deathly ill as a baby, the day the American Wizarding government building was under attack (Phoenix was inside), and those times that Phoenix had used memory charms on Nyssa to make her forget what she'd seen.

What horrible things, she always wondered, did he burry in her mind to revert her from the trembling form crouched in a corner of her bedroom, heart racing and breathing erratically, eyes darting in search of a place to hide to the cheerful unaware child that would bound down the stairs the next morning. Nyssa saw too much. She knew too much. It would drive her insane if she remembered. Lyra had to allow Phoenix's explanations for modifying their daughter's memory to resurface so that she would not have a breakdown each time it happened.

Now she paced out of worry for the dreadful things that were being concocted. For what was to come. Her family would be greatly involved and she feared the side they had chosen to be on. It was best to leave Nyssa unaware, for her to stay as far away as possible. She could not protect Tristan from it, she knew, or her eldest three, but it was different with Nyssa. The girl had never been like the rest of her siblings. She had never caved in willingly to her grandmother's wishes. Rebellious, she had often thought. Now it was not such a bad thing for her daughter to be rebellious. Even if she was called disloyal or blasted from the family tree, she needed Nyssa to resist it all.

"Mother, I've chosen some names. Can you tell me what you think?"

Lyra turned at the sound of her oldest daughter's voice, forcing a bright smile on face, letting her arms fall to her sides. "I'm sure you've chosen lovely names."

Cassia returned her mother's smile, moving closer into the room. She was holding a notepad and a dull white quill. "Caius says we are not having twins, but I think we are," Cassia patted her barely visible belly pouch lightly. "For twins, what do you think of Ofelia Daniela and Lissette Violetta Berry?"

Though she thought to herself that the names were a bit ostentatious, she replied, "They're charming, dear. But what about names for boys?"

"These two are girls," she patted her belly again, smiling lovingly at it. "I can tell."

Cassia staring so fondly at her small baby bump reminded Lyra of all her own pregnancies. With Cassia, she had been so nervous and excited. It was a mess, really. She had false labor pains three times and must have contacted the mediwitch about being in labor a dozen before she was actually in labor. Then with Ronan she had been more prepared, though it was only a year later that she had him. She remembered being in labor with him much longer than Cassia and was told by a mediwitch that it was rather normal for the first to come quicker than the rest. Three years after that she had Andreus. He was a large baby and caused her a great deal of pain to deliver. She'd almost had him at home, it having been only her, Cassia, and Ronan at home when she went into labor.

Then there was Samuel, a beautiful baby with a head full of black hair. He died when he was four and was never spoken about again. Tristan, she had thought, would be her last baby. He was a healthy baby, unlike Samuel, who had been sick often during his first years. But when Tristan was three years old, unexpectedly, she was pregnant again. It was impossible; the mediwitch that had revealed all her previous pregnancies told her so. She should not have been having another child. And yet, she did. It was a frightening pregnancy. There were frequent visits to the mediwitch, bouts of illness, and weeks of bed rests.

One morning as she made her way down the stairs, she fell. She bled heavily and the mediwitches and wizards that surrounded her at the hospital worried that neither she nor the baby would make. Only eight months developed, Nyssa was delivered. Sickly and underweight, Lyra could not look at her for months; she told herself that Nyssa would die just as Samuel had. She did not want to get attached only to lose another child. It was a horrifying period in her life. And she was not a proper mother to Nyssa until her first birthday had passed.

Nyssa had been an odd child compared to her siblings. Often, when pressed for who she thought Nyssa resembled most by friends or family members, Lyra would say that she took after her father. But as Nyssa grew more and more, it did not seem to be true. She did not resemble Phoenix or Lyra; her eyes were not dark enough, her hair too light. Always, she had been curious; playing with muggle children and befriending the muggle-born gardener. Those memories were gone, of course. Phoenix had erased them. Though she had a temper, like most Valentines, her personality was far too bright, optimistic, and loud to fit in with the rest of the family.

She would never fit in. Lyra knew this, now more than ever: Nyssa was not meant to be her daughter, not meant to be a Valentine.

* * *

**Another chapter out! (I'm a little proud of myself, I must say.)**

**Please review and tell me your thoughts! I enjoy constructive feedback and knowing what my readers think of the pace/plot so far. **


	8. Winter Break

_Winter Break_

"See you soon!" Holly called to the retreating forms of Eleanor, Nyssa, and Olivia. They were all heading home, their trunks already having been transported to the train as mysteriously as they were transported into the dorm at the start of term. Deidra and Holly would be staying the break at school; Holly's parents were going to Siberia to visit family and didn't want Holly to become ill from the cold weather there, though Olivia said they were just trying to stay away from the hyperactive girl for as long as possible, and Deidra had decided at the last minute that she just didn't want to bother with the 'hassle' of going home.

As the three girls walked down the stairs, now having mastered the route from their common room to the Entrance Hall, Olivia groaned, "Mum's going to make such a fuss over me at the train station. It'll be embarrassing!"

"Your dad will be the same, I suspect," replied Eleanor, twirling a piece of her black hair around her right index finger and absentmindedly scratching at a scab on her face. It was a bad habit Eleanor had developed recently, Nyssa noticed, to pick at the scabs left over from her acne, though like the rest of her roommates she chose not to comment. It might upset Eleanor, if she said something about it. And she liked Eleanor, even though they had recently had a fight over time spent in the bathroom and Ambrosia Selwyn – Eleanor had implied Nyssa bullied Ambrosia when one night Nyssa had complained of another argument with the girl and Eleanor said that Ambrosia would leave her alone if she wasn't such a bully towards the girl.

Olivia responded hesitantly to Eleanor's comment, "Yes, he will." She was quiet for the rest of the journey downstairs, staring solemnly at the portraits all along the wall. Olivia's father was dead. Of course, Eleanor did not know this and Nyssa did not correct her comment or tell, because she was not even supposed to know. It had been accidental that she found out. She'd been walking up to the astronomy tower one Friday afternoon with Rose only to find Olivia talking about her dead father with a Hufflepuff boy – Kain Bell, as she later discovered. Olivia told Kain that her dad had died below the astronomy tower, in the Battle of Hogwarts, which Rose told Nyssa all about once they were out by the lake later (Rose's parents fought in the battle as well).

After the unintentional eavesdropping, Nyssa had been careful to avoid the subject of fathers around Olivia. She had also swiftly changed the conversation one night when Holly and Deidra were discussing the battle in ear shot of Olivia, whom was sitting at a table in the common room with Nyssa attempting to write a compelling essay on Ulfric the Oddball.

On the train, Nyssa, Scorpius, Rose, and Albus shared a compartment. Victoire joined them halfway through the journey and introduced her friends Nadia, a tall dark-skinned girl and Mara, a girl with a short pixie cut dyed purple. Mara assured them that purple was her natural hair color, but the four first years knew better and the shared look of exasperation between Nadia and Victoire wiped away any sort of doubt one of the four might have held as to whether Mara was possibly telling the truth.

At the train station, the four walked off together, Victoire and her two friends helping navigate them through the huge crowd of students piling off the train and parents that were rushing to the edge of the platform to reach their children sooner. Scorpius' parents were waiting near the back of the platform, so he waved goodbye to the group, tugging on his heavy trunk as he made his way to the two. Similarly, Nadia and Mara both left to go to their parents – their families were on friendly terms – both sets waiting near fireplaces. There was a dark-haired boy a year or two older than Nyssa already waiting with Mara's parents. He waved to the group, and Victoire told them all over the crowd that he was Mara's brother, Thomas.

Now just a group of four, they waited in a slowly dwindling line to exit through the passage that Nyssa had first taken at the start of term. There was a wizard in uniform directing them all through, shouting loudly several times that they must go through in pairs of twos during intervals of four minutes. Anymore than that and the muggles might become suspicious, Rose informed Nyssa, who had asked why they had to do that when it was taking so long.

When at last they had made it through the barrier, Nyssa was greeted by the smiling faces of several redheads, a few black and blonde-haired people scattered in the group. Rose was standing with her parents, being cooed and fussed over by her mom; her dad throwing his head backwards while laughing. Hugo, Rose's brother, was standing quietly beside his mother, just as he had done in Ollivanders all those months ago. Victoire was hugging a beautiful blonde-haired woman and a man with a scarred face and shoulder length red-hair. Her brother and sister were standing nearby, Dominique playfully messing up Louis' hair, earning herself a frown from the pretty boy. Albus had left her side already – they'd gone through the barrier together – to a red-haired lady and a man she recognized as Harry Potter from the chocolate frog card she'd seen on the train. James was talking animatedly to Harry Potter, his dad, probably telling him all about the recent victory of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, thanks in part to his last minute goal (he'd made Chaser, just as he wanted). The other cousins of Rose and Albus were nowhere to be seen, though Nyssa supposed that she would see them plenty over the break.

"Nyssa?" The bushy-haired lady that was Rose's mom called to her, smiling welcomingly. All of the collected family members quieted when she addressed Nyssa, all directing their attention to the young girl. The attention made Nyssa feel very awkward and she furiously attempted to unknot a tangle in her hair. "Rose has said so much about you in her letters," said girl blushed and let out a muffled 'Mum!', but her mom ignored this, "I feel like I know you already."

"Albus wrote about you too." The red-haired lady standing next to Harry Potter said, patting Albus on the head, only messing up his already impossibly messy hair more. "And James," she added, glancing at the boy.

"Oui," added the extremely beautiful blonde-haired women next to Victoire, "we have all heard of the famous Nyssa."

Nyssa could feel her cheeks getting hotter the more someone mentioned that one of the Weasley or Potter children had written about her. She was not shy, at least not normally, but meeting a group of people that already knew you through letters and had preconceived notions about you that you may not live up to was not normal either. And so, at this moment, she was shy. Her words tumbling from her lips clumsily and slowly, she spoke, "It's nice to meet you all."

It took only a ride back to the Weasley family's home for Nyssa to shake off the shy feelings she'd previously had at the train station. Mrs. Weasley drove, swatting at Mr. Weasley's hand whenever he would reach towards a knob or the steering wheel. The traffic was terrible on the streets of London, not that it hadn't been every day in the last century. They drove out of the large metropolis, out into the country until they reached a small village coated in a thin blanket of snow.

The Weasley's home was a quaint two-story house; it was coated in a dull blue paint and had double windows on the first floor of the home on each side of the front door, two smaller windows on the second. It was not at all like Nyssa's home, which was rather larger and had an air of fore-boding to it. She had grown up in a completely magic community, though her family home was miles from any other. But it seemed that the Weasleys lived in a mostly, if not all but for the Weasleys, muggle community. There were cars in the driveways of each house she was able to see and several children giggling in the middle of the street as they attempted to make good snowballs to throw at one another.

"Come on, I'll show you to my room," Rose motioned for Nyssa to follow her once they'd entered the house. Nyssa had been staring curiously at a clock on the family's living room wall that bore four hands bearing pictures of each family member. Instead of numbers to tell the time, there were words on the clock. Currently, all four hands were pointed at 'Home', though Nyssa was able to read 'Work' and 'School' before Rose drug her off to the stairs.

The two girls climbed the sturdy wooden stairs, Nyssa glancing at each picture they passed. There was one of a baby Rose, smiling and sticking her hand over the camera lens; a younger Albus being poked by James; Hugo and Rose hugging one another; Rose's parents wedding photo, Albus' mom and dad standing on either side of the two.

Rose's room was almost barren. She had no furniture apart from a nightstand, bed, bookcase, and writing desk. There was a poster on the wall above her bed of a group of men flying on broomsticks. One was chasing after a golden snitch, which looked exactly like the toy one Albus often occupied his free time with. The bookcase was filled to the brim with books, some nearly as large as Rose herself. Rose's trunk sat at the foot of her bed and Nyssa's on an opposite wall. Mr. Weasley had sent them flying up after he'd managed to drag them into the house.

"Not much of a decorator, are you?" She asked nonchalantly, plopping down onto Rose's bed and laying back onto the soft, purple bedspread. Her own room was filled to the brim with flashy, expensive décor. She had a silk bedspread, pure white, with lace frills for trimming and her pillows were custom made, filled with only the finest swan feathers. There was an elm cedar chest that sat at the foot of the bed. It contained sentimental items she could not bring herself to do away with: the first outfit she had worn as a newborn, her blue teddy bear with the very practical name 'Teddy', letters from her godmother and godfather, two stuffed dolls – a fairy and wolf, a picture of her parents on their wedding day, the first 'letter' she'd received from her nephew Leif, among other odd knick knacks. She had a walk-in closet with only the finest robes and outfits her daddy's money could buy, a pastel green vanity, standing mirror, and several porcelain dolls. Pictures bedecked her pastel pink walls, the sunlight that would stream in from her windows, and below them she had a cushioned built-in seat with throw pillows that matched her bedspread.

As Nyssa said, Rose was not much of a decorator. She preferred things to be simple and neat. It made it easier to keep things clean and she really did not see the point in spending so much money on a room that you did not spend your entire life in. That was why she planned on owning a very modest home in the future. "Its wasteful to have a pretty room you don't spend much time in."

"I suppose," Nyssa replied, thinking that it probably was, but it made no difference. She still liked knowing that she had such a beautiful room at her house. If only she were allowed to decorate the whole dorm room instead of her little section, it would be the most wondrous one in the castle. "Who are they?" She asked, lazily lifting a hand to point towards the poster above Rose's bed before relaxing it back on top of her stomach.

Rose glanced up from her trunk, which she had been digging through for a good full minute now. "The Chudley Cannons. They're dad's favorite Quidditch team."

"Quidditch? You mean Quodpot?"

"So that's the version of it in the states then," Rose mused, tossing a dirty pair of sneakers behind her. They made a small plop as they hit the floor. Nyssa recognized them as the sneakers Rose was wearing the day that encountered that dreaded Whomping Willow. It had been Rose who'd rescued Nyssa, immobilizing the tree after several attempts at the charm. Then, supporting Nyssa, they'd had to journey through mud as it had started raining on their way back to the castle. They'd entered soaked and muddy to the bemusement of other students that had the chance to glimpse them on the way to the hospital wing, having fallen to the ground a few times.

"Do you like it?"

"Dad played. I wouldn't mind playing, but I'm better suited to studies really. What about you?"

"God, no." Nyssa sat up, wondering just what on earth Rose was wanting from her trunk so much that she was willing to make such a mess of her room. Clothes were now scattered around her and several books had been tossed to the floor, lying open page down. Normally, Rose would have decried such treatment of books. "Do you know how many injuries players receive on a regular basis? My brother Ronan played and he used to come home for the holidays with a broken nose or fractured elbow. I want to avoid getting injured, not offer myself up for it."

Rose's lips curled at the corners. "Lacking a bit of the Gryffindor courage, aren't you?"

"Always," Nyssa replied. "If I were a Ravenclaw, we'd be living in the same dorm. I don't know how I'm going to survive the rest of my school years." She flung herself backwards once again, letting out a dramatic sigh.

"I thought you and Eleanor got on well."

"We do, but I wish she'd stop taking that bratty Ambrosia Selwyn's side." Nyssa turned onto her side, staring at Rose, who was holding a book triumphantly. It looked to be a book on potions making, probably borrowed from Scorpius. He had an endless supply of them and was more than happy to recruit other unfortunate, according to Nyssa, students over to the darkness that was potions. "Can you believe she told me I was a bully to Ambrosia? Me! A bully! Honestly," she grumbled, re-positioning her hand on her cheek so that her cheekbone was not sticking into her palm.

Rose bit her lip, turning from Nyssa so that she wouldn't have to meet her eyes. "Well, I am grateful that you stood up to her for me, but now," she stood up slowly, thinking her words over carefully so as not to upset her friend, "you do sort of just have a go at her for no reason. But only sometimes, really," she assured her, now looking back at Nyssa with a smile.

"Right," Nyssa agreed. She would admit that she did sometimes enjoy being spiteful towards Ambrosia just because she loved the reactions from the girl or to help relieve frustrations of the day. It wasn't as if Ambrosia didn't do the same, following Nyssa and Rose around just to say something nasty or purposely tripping Nyssa in the corridors. "But I'm not a bully."

"Of course not," Rose said quickly, though she wondered if she was only saying so because Nyssa was her friend and if she would think differently were she not. "Did you hear the rumor about Emilia Wright?"

"The half-blood Hufflepuff in Victoire's year? What's the rumor mill say?"

"She fancies Professor Creevey."

"Creepy Creevey? You're joking. What sane person would like him?"

The two girls then delved into the topic of their DADA professor. Nyssa thought that his demeanor was quite odd and called him 'Creep Creevey' outside of his presence, which Rose often reprimanded her for. Her parents knew their professor, apparently, though neither had really spoken to him that much over the years. He'd had a brother, they'd written to Rose, who was an admirer of her Uncle Harry. That was all they said on the subject, abruptly inserting a new topic (Hugo's participation in a school play) into the letter. This aroused curiosity in Rose and Nyssa, once Rose had shown her the letter. Nyssa insisted that they investigate the Creevey brothers, which would explain why they found themselves in Filch's office for being out of bounds that one time they attempted to break into Professor Creevey's classroom after classes had ended for the day. They'd both been about to receive a detention when Filch rushed out of the office, chasing after the annoying poltergeist Peeves for stealing a piece of paper on his desk. Per Nyssa's suggestion, the two girls had ran from the room and continued to keep as far away from Filch as was possible least he try to give out the detention they'd slipped out of.

It was over dinner that night that Rose's mom informed Nyssa of the big family Christmas they would be having. She assured Nyssa that she was more than welcome and would not be a bother when a look of apprehension had appeared on the girl's face. "You're more than welcome, dear. In fact, the rest of the family is eager to meet you. Rose never did manage to make friends at public school, so we're all very grateful she has you now."

This comment made Rose blush scarlet and send a look of exasperation to her mom. She was no doubt embarrassed, but Nyssa did not feel she needed to be. After all, she had not had friends before Rose, unless she counted Scorpius, but that had not known each other much longer than she knew Rose. The other children she went to school with were too frightened of her cousin to befriend her. Lacerta had gone out of her way in their younger years to make Nyssa's life a little less cheery. "Rose is my first friend as well," she said simply, taking another bite of the delicious apple pie. It was made from the recipe Rose's grandmother had given to Mrs. Weasley.

Rose turned to Nyssa, the color of her cheeks returning to normal. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley shared a glance before returning to their dessert. Hugo did not look up. He must have been very shy, Nyssa thought, because he had not spoken once since Nyssa had come through the barrier. Later, she asked Rose about it, who told her that it was unusual to see Hugo so quiet, as he was normally very talkative.

* * *

Over the course of the break, Rose decided to spend her time completing the work given by their Professors. She had finished it all before Christmas and spent most of her time chiding Nyssa for being so lazy with her schoolwork. Nyssa had started some of her work, but quickly got bored of it once her thoughts drifted towards more interesting things she could have been doing. Her parents sent their Christmas gift early – a silver chain with a beautiful full moon pendant and two extra cauldrons – and Scorpius wrote four or more letters a week. He complained in each one about how bored he was at home, but each time Nyssa suggested he come to Rose's house for a day or Albus', he declined.

On Christmas morning, Mrs. Weasley woke Nyssa and Rose very early in the morning. It was only five, Rose had protested, but Mrs. Weasley insisted they needed to get up very early so as to have time to get ready and reach Rose's grandparents house in time. They were scheduled to be there at half-past noon, so that they had time to each lunch, though Mr. Weasley had insisted several times that they could arrive whenever. Mrs. Weasley did not relent, stating that she and her husband needed to be there early to help cook and arrange the house for the festivities that would occur in the evening. This was a routine, Rose informed Nyssa, as it happened every year.

Once dressed, Rose and Nyssa started down the stairs. Nyssa fell into the wall once and knocked down a picture of a group of rag-wearing house elves. She apologized for her clumsiness, but Mrs. Weasley guaranteed her there was no need for an apology, quickly putting the picture back in its place with a flick of her wrist. They set the table and waited for Mr. Weasley and Hugo to come tumbling down the stairs so that they could eat breakfast. It took only two loud, irritated shouts from Mrs. Weasley for the two to come rushing down the stairs, Mr. Weasley hopping on one foot while desperately trying to pull his sock onto the other. Still tired and half asleep after breakfast, they helped Mrs. Weasley assort the presents by family, pack some extra food Mrs. Weasley made because you could never have too much, she said, and ran to the store to get some more strawberry jam.

They all traveled to Rose's grandparents by the floo network. Mr. Weasley went first, surrounded by dozens of festively wrapped boxes. Rose and Nyssa went after him, and were followed by Hugo and Mrs. Weasley. The first sight to greet Nyssa once she'd threw the floo powder down while standing in the fireplace and shouted 'The Burrow' was Mr. Wesaley groaning on the floor, surrounded by presents. A plump, red-haired elderly woman was standing over him, saying, "Oh, Ron, you should have asked your father to help you with those. You two haven't gone and spent your entire Christmas bonus on these, have you?"

"No, mum," grumbled Mr. Weasley, sitting up slowly and rubbing his lower back. Rose and Nyssa had moved out of the fireplace so as not to have Hugo and Mrs. Weasley land on top of them, but were still unnoticed by the elderly woman so far. "Hermione wanted to buy more."

At this precise moment, Hugo and Mrs. Weasley appeared in the fireplace. "Oh, Ron!" Mrs. Weasley shouted, rushing towards her husband. It was not him she ended up crooning over, however, but the scattered presents. "I'll have to sort them again now." Rose tugged on Nyssa's arm, pulling her a few feet away from her mom, least the woman turn to the two and request that they help with the sorting once more. "What were you thinking?"

"What was I thinking?" Mr. Weasley bellowed, staring incredulously at his wife. "I didn't plan to drop them, Hermione! But when you're carrying enough present for all of Hogwarts–" He was not able to finish his rant, nor was Mrs. Weasley able to respond, for Rose's grandmother had finally noticed Nyssa and Rose and suddenly squealed in surprise.

"There's my Rosey Posey!" She bustled over to the two girls, grabbing Rose by the shoulders and pulling her into a tight hug. "You haven't come to see me yet, darling! Why not? You could have brought your friend." She said this while looking at Nyssa, smiling at her. From what she could see so far, Rose's grandmother seemed far friendly than hers and more into hugs and kisses than her granny.

Wrangling herself from her grandmother's grasp, Rose took a step back from the woman. "Sorry, gran." She turned to Nyssa, "This is my gran, Molly Weasley." She remembered Rose's grandmother's name. Louis had explained one day at dinner that his bossy prefect cousin Molly was named for their grandmother and couldn't be more opposite than the woman.

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Weasley," Nyssa said, feeling a slight degree of that shyness she'd had at the train station the day they'd come from Hogwarts creeping back up. She told herself to not be nervous. The woman in front of her was a very nice woman, according to her grandchildren, not someone to be scared stiff around like her own grandmother.

"You too, dear. Do you call Rose's mum Mrs. Weasley?" Nyssa nodded. "It'd be confusing to call me Mrs. Weasley too, wouldn't it? Call me gran."

=ooo=

And Nyssa did, as the hours ticked by. She and Rose stayed in the kitchen with Mrs. Weasley and gran, mostly sitting at the large kitchen table and talking to each other and occasionally helping to stir or crack open eggs. Mr. Weasley and Hugo had gone outside with Mr. Weasley's dad, a bald man except for the tiny patches of red hair above his ears. He introduced himself as Arthur Weasley and enthusiastically described a strange muggle tool called a 'coffee maker' before Mrs. Weasley ordered him to go lock away all his muggles devices before the rest of the family arrived.

It was Luis and Victoire's family that arrived after Rose's, Victoire's scarred father toting just as many presents as Mr. Weasley had been. Victoire and her mom joined the women in the kitchen, while Victoire's dad went to help set up tables and decorations outside; Dominique and Louis followed him because it was 'boring' inside.

Victoire was wearing a darling knee-length green dress with gold trimmings and a black belt around her mid-section. She had curled her hair and was sporting bright red lipstick on her plump lips. "How's the break been? Have you two finished your schoolwork yet?"

"I have," Rose proclaimed proudly, receiving a grin from her mom.

Nyssa rolled her eyes at the girl, making Rose swat her on the shoulder playfully. "I haven't. There are much better things to do."

"Ron used to say that all the time when he would come home from Hogwarts," Molly said wistfully, staring off at nothing with a spatula in her hand. Remembering her children's younger years always brought on such mixed feelings of joy and sadness. She felt sad that the years had gone by so quickly and they were no longer the babies that she held in her arms each night, but happy at all the wonderful memories she had of their years spent growing up. There were some terribly sad memories too, and they produced a sharp ache in her heart.

"Ron and Harry both were horrible went it came to doing schoolwork," Mrs. Weasley said, stirring something in a bowl that was turning a dark yellow. From her tone, it appeared that she was rather disappointed the two had held this attitude towards schoolwork. "They tried to have me let them copy my papers."

"I wish Rose would let me copy her potions essays," Nyssa remarked, inciting a round of laughter from all the gathered females.

"If you tried a bit harder, you'd do fine on your own. Hagrid said so as well."

Nyssa did not remember Hagrid telling her to try harder. He only said that Teddy Lupin had been miserable at potions in the beginning as well, but got better later on. "He said I reminded him of Teddy. Will he be here this evening?" From all she'd heard about Teddy's relationship with the family, she assumed he would be. But then, Victoire had said he was off doing Auror training and Nyssa did not know if you were confined during that training or allowed to go home from time to time.

"He and Andromeda will come. They always do." Victoire's mom said, using her wand to flip pancakes in a frying pan while she sat at the table flipping through a magazine. It had been titled 'Witchy Woman' and had a scantily dressed winking woman on the cover, Nyssa saw, before Victoire's mom opened it.

"Andromeda?" Nyssa questioned, wondering what her relation was to Teddy. It sounded familiar, the name, but that was probably only because it was a star related name. Her family, at least her grandmother's side of it, had a tradition of naming their children after constellations or stars within constellations. "Is she Teddy's mom?"

A hush fell over the room at Nyssa's question, the only sound being that of a ticking clock and the sizzling frying pan. She had obviously said something wrong, because even Victoire's mom looked up from her magazine, which she seemed to be very interested in. "Andromeda is Teddy's gran. His parents are," Victoire hesitated, biting her lip, "they're dead. They died in the last wizarding war not long after Teddy was born."

"I didn't know," Nyssa apologized, understanding that her innocent question must have brought up some bad memories for the mothers in the room all remained silent.

"It's perfectly alright that you didn't. We don't speak about it much anymore. Not a pleasant topic, really," Mrs. Weasley said. She went back to her stirring, Victoire's mom looked back down to the magazine, and gran turned her attention once again to a boiling pot on the stove. Gran's eyes traveled to an open cookbook on the counter beside the stove.

"Teddy's gran was a Black before she married his granddad. She isn't on your family's tapestry?" Rose was attempting to change the conversation, and had decided to shift it to the topic of Nyssa's family. She had yet to tell her family of Nyssa's blood status or family, though she was positive it would not matter to them. The Weasleys and Potters were related to the Blacks as well.

Nyssa shook her head, feeling the eyes of the other women in the room now upon her once again. "She might be, but I don't remember seeing her on it."

"You are related to the Black family?" Victoire asked. Her barely visible blonde eyebrows rose in surprise.

"My grandmother was a Black before she married my grandfather. They met in the states at Salem Witches' Institute's annual school ball. Grandfather went to Bythovion School of Sorcery and, well, the boys from there go to the ball. It was all very sudden, their meeting and then marriage. They'd only known each other for half a year."

"That is rather sudden," Gran agreed, flipping a page in the cookbook and stirring the contents of the pot sitting on a burner next to the one already boiling. "Arthur and I knew each other at Hogwarts, of course. We started dating in fifth year. He proposed in seventh. My parents were opposed, of course. They didn't want me marrying so young and not to Arthur Weasley. But we were married by the fall."

Rose perked up at this, "Your parents didn't like granddad?" It was new information about Rose's grandparents, it seemed, that even Rose had not heard before. Nyssa felt privileged to be one of the first people to hear it alongside Rose and some of her family members.

"Merlin, no! A Weasley, what would others think? The Prewett girl marrying into the biggest family of blood traitors you could find. How the tongues would wag." She said this with a little laugh in voice, as if she looked back upon the memory of her parent's opposition with fondness. "My parents weren't blood supremacists, but all the same, there was a reputation to upkeep. Arthur persisted though, he always does. My dad gave him a great big bruise above his left eye and that was the end of it." It was going to be interesting, she thought, to see her son's going up against their daughter's future husbands.

"Your dad hit granddad and then allowed you to marry him?"

"So my memory tells me."

"My dad was so mean to Ron when we first went round to visit after he proposed," Mrs. Weasley chimed in, sighing at memory. It had been not long after she completed her final year – Victoire had already been born – though they did not get married until a few years after that. It had been a long engagement, unlike Harry and Ginny's. Harry didn't propose to Ginny until after she and Ron had married. The fiery redhead accepted immediately, of course, having been waiting for ages for him to propose. They were married five months later, though if things had gone Ginny's way, the two would have eloped and been done with it. Instead, they ended up going through the long process of planning and preparing for a large family and friend wedding.

Victoire's mom looked back up from the magazine, flipping her long blonde locks over her shoulder. She was currently reading an article about Amora Snow, a songstress who'd apparently just gone through with her fifth marriage and was having custody issues over her first son with her second husband. It was about to go into her struggle with alcohol over the years and her latest single, which Fleur knew would be another flop. "Papa and Maman adored Bill when they first met him. They asked if I would be happy with him and I told them I would, so they did not object."

Several loud sounds suddenly came from outside the house. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. Nyssa recognized it as the sound of someone apparating, and although she'd heard it many times, the noise still made her jump in her seat. Mrs. Weasley did as well, jerking her wand towards the door as if it were a reflex. She quickly put it away once she'd regained her wits, reminding herself that the war was long over and they were all safe now.

The door burst open, a cheery-faced Louis bustling inside, "Everyone's here! Granddad told me to tell you!" That said he turned around, slamming the door behind himself as he headed back outside.

Victoire stood up, walking towards a mirror that hung next to a clock that was very much like the one Nyssa had seen in Rose's home. She ran her fingers through her hair, poking some behind her ears and letting the rest fall around her face. Her mood seemed significantly brighter now and after primping herself she hurried to the door, dashing outside.

"Teddy," Rose whispered in Nyssa's ear, "she's gone to see him." And Nyssa instantly understood why Victoire looked so much happier as she ran out the door than when she had been sitting at the table chatting with them all. It was the same way her mom acted whenever her daddy arrived home from work. She'd stand by the fireplace, waiting for him to come waltzing out so she could hug him, ask how his day had been, remove his jacket, and then offer him a cup of tea.

An elderly woman with long, thick shiny dark brown hair (there were a few wisps of grey among the brown), thin lips, and dark, wide eyes walked into the house next, followed by Albus' flaming red-haired mom, a tall woman with brown eyes and braided black hair, and a thin brown-haired woman that had eyes as blue as the ocean. The tall woman was introduced as Angelina Weasley, Fred and Roxanne's mom, the blue-eyed woman as Audrey Weasley, Molly and Lucy's mom, and the elderly woman as Andromeda Tonks, Teddy's gran.

"You two should head outside now. I'm sure you'll have more fun with the other children instead of us old ladies," Angelina said, winking at the two.

The girls decided that they would head outside as they weren't exactly helping in the kitchen nor were they needed any longer. Nyssa was glad once they'd gone outside, because the women had just got into a conversation about their children growing up and she didn't know if she could sit through such a dull conversation. Outside, Bill, Victoire's dad, and another red-haired man with several burn scars on his arms were battling with chairs against two other red-haired men – one of them was missing an ear and the other wore glasses. Hugo was standing next to a younger red-haired girl, talking excitedly to his granddad and Nyssa just barely managed to catch a few strands of Victoire's blonde hair disappearing around the corner of the house.

"Oi,Valentine!" James shouted, standing not but three feet in front of Nyssa. He was far too close to be shouting, in her opinion. "Having a good time at Rose's house? I bet it's boring. Do you read books all day? That wouldn't be fun."

Nyssa turned to Rose, a grimace now on her face. She found James Potter to be really obnoxious. He was friendly, sure, but he liked to tease people and it often became too much. James also happened to be overly confident and was proficient at telling fibs, often spouting off nonsense about how he'd been flying since he was two months old or could produce a stag patronus. "Happy that you get to tease me over break, Potter?"

"Over the moon," he replied, grinning before he took a few steps backwards. He'd seen Louis and Fred, who were gesturing him over wildly, sneaky expressions on their faces. "Don't wilt without me." And off he went. Upon reaching his two favorite cousins, the group of three huddled together for a few minutes and then took off running towards a shed towards the far corner of the yard.

=ooo=

"At least you haven't spent all break with him," Albus griped to Nyssa and Rose later about James as they were all sitting on the grass, watching the adult men joke around with each other and get berated by their wives for goofing off when they should have been setting up the tables and whatnot.

"Thank Merlin," Nyssa muttered, thinking to herself that she would have either gone crazy or killed James if she had to spend a vast amount of time around him. "Who's that girl with Hugo? No one's mentioned her."

"That's Lily," Rose said, plucking at the petals of a purple flower. It was a weed, she told Nyssa, though Nyssa insisted that even if it were classified as a weed it looked like a flower and should be called one.

"She's my younger sister," Albus added.

"She looks like your mom."

"Everyone says that."

"And you look like your dad."

"I know."

"And James looks and acts like a mixture of Harry's dad and godfather," chimed a voice from behind the three. The voice was sweet and velvety, like chocolate, mesmerizing with each syllable spoken. It was also calming; a sturdy voice that would leave you reassured in a crisis that all would be well. Facing the owner of the voice, Nyssa gasped, shuffling away from the older boy. He had blue hair, strikingly green eyes, and pale skin. He was the blue-haired boy she'd seen entering the train when she was standing on the platform before heading off to Hogwarts.

"Scared you, did I?" The boy asked, staring down at her with mirth shining in his eyes. He was taller than average and of slim build. Victoire stood behind him. "Sorry about that. I'm Teddy Lupin. You're Rose's friend Nyssa, right?" No response. Teddy noticed that Nyssa was staring intently at his blue hair. Smirking, he slowly changed his bright blue hair into the exact shade of brown as Nyssa's and then his eyes into that same odd amber of hers.

This only made Nyssa's eyes widen more and she stood, dusting off her clothes lightly, but never removing her eyes from Teddy. "How did you do that?"

"I'm a metamorphmagus." He declared proudly. It was an ability he'd inherited from his mother, a very rare ability, in fact.

"Goodness, Teddy, I had no idea you had a sister." Ginny, Albus' mom asked jokingly while walking near them, carrying a large platter of chocolate pretzels and truffles to the one of the many tables all pushed against one another. Gran was shouting at the four red-haired men to put the chairs they were having a battle with down.

The playful comment struck caused Nyssa to gaze at Teddy once more. His hair, she confirmed, was indeed now the same shade as her and he was sporting the very same eyes. They even had similar face shapes, though Nyssa doubted she would ever be as tall as the older boy. He really did look like her older brother with this appearance. None of her blood-related siblings resembled her or, perhaps, she did not resemble them, so it was with a small bubble of happiness in her belly that she decided to smile at the remark.

"Gran," Teddy yelled towards the elderly woman setting a large ham on one of the tables. He moved to stand beside Nyssa and pointed towards her when the woman finally looked up after he'd called her for the third time. "I've got a sister. Did you know? You told me you wished you had a granddaughter. You won't love her more than me, will you? I've known you longer."

"How lovely that you've found her, dear. I will surely love her a thousand times more," she replied, issuing laughter from the gathered family members and an indignant cry of 'Gran!' from Teddy. He kept the same hair and eye color for the rest of the night, referring to Nyssa as his '_sister_' and protesting the use of the subject potions alongside her when George, Fred's dad, had asked what subject the children thought was least useful. Teddy also told a dramatic story of how Nyssa was actually born before him, but was stolen away right after and kept in a frozen state until her kidnappers thought it was time to let her start growing. When they were unwrapping presents, he handed a box with a tag on it that had her name marked out and written underneath it in shining gold letters was 'To My Sister'. As all the families began to leave one by one, several of the children yawning (Lily was about to topple over for want of sleep), he wiped away fake tears and told her that they would see one another soon.

It was all in good fun and something to laugh over in the months to come, she knew, but as she lay beside an already sleeping Rose that night in bed a tiny part of her could not help wishing that Teddy's far-fetched story of kidnappers and stopped growth were true.

* * *

**Another chapter! :)**

**As always, I ask that you do review and tell me your thoughts. On a side note, I am currently re-writing the Prologue, as I think it is just too confusing to have that first bit that does not at all correlate with the next chapter and will not be explained for a while yet.**


	9. The Last Exam

_The Last Exam_

"Write a letter to my parents, won't you? Tell them that I passed on while slaving over a cauldron of Strengthening Solution."

"So dramatic," Deidra mused, slipping her robe over her shoulders and fastening it around her collar. She had tied her hair back today and had that determined look in her eyes that told you she was going to accomplish whatever her goal for the day was. "It won't be that bad."

"She's right, you know, you'll do perfectly fine on the exam. It's not like we have to memorize all the ingredients and directions," added Olivia, tugging on green knee-high socks. They were Christmas presents from her parents, she'd told them all, though Nyssa rectified it as a Christmas present from her mom in to herself. After they'd gotten back from break, all of the girls had immediately shown off their new items they'd received and thanked one another for the candies they'd all sent to each other. They'd had a laugh over it, the fact that all of them had sent a box of chocolate frogs to each girl, when they found out.

The Easter Holidays had passed more quickly than the winter break. Gran had sent Nyssa a large toffee egg and Mrs. Weasley a chocolate bunny that was charmed to hop around like a real one. It was so life-like that Nyssa decided not to eat it, but she came back to her dorm one day to find Holly munching down on it. Forcibly dragging Rose along, she held a mock funeral for the deceased chocolate bunny by the lake. Oddly enough, not long after she had done this, the entire student population was called to the courtyard at night to hold a memorial service for the lost lives in the battle that had taken place at Hogwarts.

Headmistress Sprout had stood in front of them all, sticking her wand to her throat and muttering a short spell to make her voice louder. "Students, Professors, ghosts, and magical creatures," she looked to the centaurs that had come up from the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid leading the way, "we come together on this second of May in the year two-thousand seventeen to commemorate the end of a wizarding war and pay respects to those loved ones that were lost." She paused to wipe at the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Professor Flitwick blew his nose loudly, while both Professor Longbottom and Creevey looked solemnly towards grounds beyond the courtyard. "I want you all to raise your wands," they all did so, "light them," again, they all did as she said, though some of the first years that still had trouble with Lumos did not manage to keep their light going, "and while you stand there together, think of those students all those years ago who stood so united and fought against the darkness. Think of those who gave their lives so that you may all be here today." And then she silent, her eyes closed, holding her wand towards the sky with a deep blue light shining from the tip.

Nyssa never cried, or so she liked to tell others. She was not a particularly whiney child. It was not necessary to be, because she got what she wanted without being irritating, most of the time. She did not cry when her pet cat died or when her daddy shouted at her for turning Lacerta's hair a nasty shade of green. But standing among the crowd of students with raised wands, she cried. It was not the sobbing type of crying which everyone would be able to hear and see, as was the case with Olivia at the time, but a silent cry. The first bit of salty water had come from her left eye, staining her cheek for a moment before being absorbed into the pores of her skin. And in that moment, Nyssa felt a terrible ache that filled her with a sorrow she had never known before. It was a heavy feeling deep inside, a sense of loss and loneliness. And it had stayed with her ever since.

She had taken all of her other exams – Charms, Transfiguration, DADA, History of Magic, Herbology, and Astronomy – so it was only Potions left now and she was not looking forward to it at all. Though she had finally managed to create a perfect Vitamix potion, her potions making skills were not improving as much as she'd have liked. According to her dorm mates, who'd all taken the Potions exam already, she was going to have to make a Strengthening potion, which was harder to make than a regular Strength potion but produced the same effect. She'd said this aloud in class one day and ended up sitting through the rest of the class listening to Professor Sawyer drone on about the small, but clear differences between the effects of the two potions.

"Personally, I hope you do horrible on your Potions exam," Eleanor admitted, coming up behind Nyssa and running a hand through her long hair. They'd agreed the night before that Eleanor would braid Nyssa's hair in the morning, after Nyssa had won a game of exploding snap and Eleanor revealed she was fantastic when it came to hairdressing. "Professor Flitwick said you made the highest grade in our year on the Charms exam. He was boasting about you. My grade on the exam was ghastly and I will feel so much better if you don't do well at something I did well in. You also got a perfect score on the History exam. Who does well on a History exam?"

"I suppose that's what they call honesty," began Olivia, "though it sounds more like jealousy, El."

"I hope you do well, Nyssa," Holly interjected, obviously misinterpreting Eleanor's wish of bad luck to Nyssa as her true intentions. She did not actually wish Nyssa to do well on her exam, though she would not deny, as she had said, that it would made her feel better about her grade on the Charms exam.

Ignoring the comment from Holly, Eleanor forced Nyssa to sit down upon her trunk, and asked, "What style would you like today, Miss Valentine? One braid? Two? I'm afraid we don't have time for tiny braids all across your head. Perhaps you'd like a special braid? I suggest the waterfall."

"I'll go with that one then," concluded Nyssa, fluffing her bangs that were getting slightly longer and now hung half-way down her eyebrow. "Do you suppose I should keep my bangs or let them grow over the summer?"

"Bangs," Deidra repeated appearing highly amused at the term.

"Yes, bangs," Nyssa pointed at the hair on her forehead.

"You mean a fringe and I think you should let it grow out, just to see what it would look like," Olivia said, watching Eleanor's fast moving hands twist strands or Nyssa's hair around one another, dropping a strand every few twists. It was going along quickly and so far looked pretty.

"No, a fringe is different. If I had a fringe, it'd be longer on one side," Nyssa explained, demonstrating how the hair on her forehead would be cut if it were a fringe by drawing her hand in a diagonal, circular motion from her left temple to her cheekbone.

"There's an owl outside," Holly screeched, pointing at the window beside Nyssa's bed. She was staring at the owl with wide eyes as if it were about to turn into a dragon. "They don't normally come up to the dorms, do they?"

Olivia shrugged and went over to the window to open it. Once she'd undone the latch and cracked the window slightly aside, the owl pelted in, and zoomed head first into Nyssa's bed sheets. It quickly hopped back up, shaking its body to help smooth out any displaced feather. Eyeing Nyssa, it walked to the edge of her bed and held out a tiny piece of parchment hanging from its beak impatiently.

Nyssa snatched the parchment from the owl's beak, for the owl looked very disgruntled. It had, perhaps, she thought, been awoken from a nice long sleep. The owl flew back out the window and Olivia closed the window, needing Deidra's assistance to push the latch back down. Nyssa unfolded the small slip of parchment, turning it around because the chicken-scratch letters on the page had been upside down. She read:

_Dear Nyssa,_

_Artemas ate something bad. Poor fellow's sick. He's been moaning all night long. I think he misses you. I know you're busy what with your last tests of the year and all. Drop by to see him sometime._

_See you soon,_

_Hagrid_

She stood up immediately, causing Eleanor to accidentally pull down hard on the strands of hair she'd been holding. It hurt, but Nyssa ignored the pain, dashing from the room with Eleanor calling after her, "But I haven't finished your hair," and Deidra asking in a worried tone, "Is something wrong?" Yes, she thought to herself as she ran down the stairs leading up to her dorm, skipping one or two to get down faster. How could she have been so neglectful? From the time the students had returned from winter break, she'd been going less and less to visit her little fox. But Hagrid was looking after him and Artemas did like Hagrid, so she thought he'd be fine. That was just an excuse she made up, though, because she was too lazy to go see the animal herself.

On her journey down to Hagrid's hut, she bypassed many students. Most did not know what to think of the running Gryffindor girl, sharing a glance with their friends and then moving on, but some did catch a glimpse of her half-braided hair and snickered at the sight. She was huffing heavily by the time she reached the grounds and had to slow her pace to keep herself from stopping completely. Hagrid stood outside his hut, watering some gigantic snapping plant that he'd boasted about to Rose and Nyssa just last week, and Nyssa ran up to him, calling out, "Hagrid! Where is he? Is he alright?"

Hagrid turned, astonished to see the girl that was soon supposed to be taking a Potions exam – she'd talked about it so many times now that even he remembered exactly when the exam was taking place – outside his home and not up in the castle listening to last minute tips from Scorpius. The blonde-haired Malfoy was very adept at potions, just like his father, Hagrid told him. Scorpius had looked down at the mention of his father, knowing just how horrid he treated the giant man by listening to stories from the man himself. "Nyssa! What are yeh doin' here? Yeh'll be takin' yeh're exam soon."

"I'm such a bad person," Nyssa sniffed, wiping at her drippy nose with the sleeve of her robe. "Poor Artemas, to have an owner like me. Where is he Hagrid? He'll live, won't he?"

"Don' yeh worry. The little feller will be righ' as rain in a few 'ours. Yeh can hold me ter that." Hagrid assured, patting Nyssa's head gently. It could be called a gentle pat by Hagrid's standards because he was not nailing her into the ground with each downward swing of his large hand.

"Thanks for taking care of him so well, Hagrid," she mumbled, still wiping at her nose and attempting to clear away all the snot that was leaking out. At least this snot was not from a cold, like the dreadful one she'd had two weeks ago. Madam Pomfrey had given her two doses of pepper-up potion before she was able to hold her head up again without feeling dizzy. She'd even missed a History lesson, though Rose was kind enough to copy her notes to give to Nyssa.

"Don' worry 'bout it. Yeh should thank Albus. He's been stoppin' by to visit 'em some." He gave her head one last firm pat, which did knock her backwards a bit. Hagrid had grabbed her before she fell backwards. Then he sent her off, telling her to come back with the others to talk about how they did on their exams. She promised she would, and set off for the school with Hagrid yelling after her, "Good luck!"

It wasn't until she was walking down the corridor to her Potions classroom, hoping that one of her roommates would have brought her bag with her collapsible cauldron, quill, ink, and parchment in it to the room (there wasn't enough time for her to go to the dorm and get the bag), that she remembered Hagrid's words. Albus had come to visit Artemas, he'd said. She would have to thank him, as Hagrid had suggested, but later, after her History exam was over. It was good fortune for Nyssa that Eleanor had brought her bag down, run into Asher Zabini, and handed it off to him to give to Nyssa.

"Here," Asher handed the bag to her, eyeing her half-braided hair with scrutiny. Honestly, from the amount of times he'd seen her walking around with her robe slung over only one of her shoulders and the other side dragging the floor or wild hair that appeared to have not been combed; he was used to seeing her look disheveled. But that did not mean it was not a nuisance to him. If she was to be around him, he preferred she look well put together and not like a throwaway. "What happened to you? That Eleanor girl looked worried."

She grabbed the bag, scanning it quickly for a bronze cauldron, quill, ink, and parchment. It was all there, the quill was even her most recent favorite purple-feathered one, though she remembered it being lost, not packing it. "Nothing," Nyssa insisted, "I just got caught up with something is all. I'll be glad once we're through here, won't you?"

Asher shrugged, still gazing at her hair. "Couldn't you have made time to finish that?"

Nyssa paused for a moment, confused as to what he was talking about. Finish? What did she need to finish? It was when she was about to ask this that she caught his line of sight and placed a hand to her hair, feeling both sides before she realized what he meant. She remembered running off now, in the middle of the hair braiding. It seemed very foolish now that she'd done it. She understood why all those students had laughed at her as she passed by and her hands vigorously clawed at her hair in an attempt to unravel the braid.

"You two, aren't you coming in?" The radiant face of their Potions professor, Chloe Sawyer, was staring at them from around the barely open door leading into the classroom. Her hair was copper-colored and it flowed in waves to adorn her glowing, pale skin. She was very thin, so much so that you would have been able to see the outline of her skeleton had her topaz colored robes stuck to her skin. Sometimes, she walked around with the biggest frown on her face her warm, baby blue eyes swimming with unshed tears. It was hard for Nyssa not to wonder why, in the same way that she wondered about Professor Creevey's sob story, because Professor Sawyer looked so miserable at times.

It occurred to Nyssa, as she scuttled through the doorway – the mahogany-haired boy's shoes made a clacking noise behind her as they met the stone floor – that he had been waiting on her. She slid into the empty seat beside Rose, who gave a glance to her and stared at her hair one second to long; Nyssa was furiously trying to do away with the braid in her hair once again when Professor Sawyer started to speak about the exam they were all about to take.

It was an hour later, walking down a corridor shortly after leaving the classroom with Rose patting Nyssa's back comfortingly, that James ran up to the quartet of friends. He sported a wolfish expression, the skin crinkling around his eyes and his lips turning up at the corners. "Done with exams?"

"We've just finished," Scorpius told him, rubbing absentmindedly at a scab on his forearm. He'd scraped his arm against one of the corners of his four-poster bed, he explained to them, when he was arguing with Zachary Cattermole and the other boy had unintentionally shoved him rather hardly. It was hardly unintentional, Nyssa had protested, as the context behind the fight was Zachary complaining about sharing a dorm with Scorpius because his father had been a Death Eater, whatever that was, and Zachary was muggle-born, so he felt 'threatened' by Scorpius' presence. Why did it issue fear in Zachary that Scorpius' dad had been a member of this gang of Death Eaters, Nyssa had asked aloud to him. Scorpius had not responded, changing the subject to the hijinks of Albus' brother James and his own recent success on the Herbology exam.

"Come along then," James commanded, gesturing with his arms for them to walk in front of them.

Albus quirked an eyebrow, his jaw slacking, "What are you up to _now_?"

"A small celebration," he said mysteriously, "we're running late as it is so if you will." Again, he gestured for the four of them to walk in front of them. Though they were all rather wary of going anywhere with James out of the fear that he and his friends would play some sort of prank on them, they did as he wanted and walked in front of them down the corridor. He gave them directions from behind, calling out 'left', 'right', or 'up the stairs' occasionally. They were lead to a part of the school none of them had yet to find. It was when James stopped them in front of a wall that the wary feeling that had gradually receded the longer they walked reappeared.

Walking in front of them, James smirked at their expressions, and then turned around to face the wall. He closed his eyes at the same time that Scorpius crossed his arms over his chest and let out a large huff of air. Slowly, a dark, wooden door appeared on the wall in front of James, and all four friends let out gasps. James opened the door, turned back to the four of them and quickly ushered them inside before closing it behind himself.

The room before them was spacious, decorated with all sorts of red, gold, silver, yellow, green, and blue items. There were four tables with a variety of desserts and main dishes crammed on top of them, streamers, and banners hanging on the back wall for all four Hogwarts' houses. Miniature lions, badgers, snakes, and eagles were walking around on the floor, letting out their individual animal noises. Pictures or students smiling or waving lined the walls beneath the banners; they all had names and years written on them in swirly black letters. A bubbling purple liquid in a fountain stood at the center of it all, rays of different colored lights hitting the crystal ball hanging from the ceiling above it and bouncing all around the room. "Welcome," said James with an arm over Albus' shoulder, "to the Room of Requirement, where your wildest fantasy can materialize!"

There were several students already in the room, dancing to the sound of the latest number one wizard pop song from the states _Lumos My Heart_ by Pixie Dust, or talking animatedly and loudly in groups. James left the four, heading off to join Louis and some other second-year boys, Lucy was holding hands with a tall Slytherin boy, Roxanne and Dominique were loading plates down with tiny cakes and sausages, Fred was flirting with a pretty Hufflepuff girl, Victoire stood with her two friends and some other older students having pictures taken, and Molly was nowhere to be found. Nyssa suspected Molly's absence from the celebration was due to the fact that it was probably not sanctioned by the school and Molly was not one to disobey rules.

By the looks of it, the four of them were the only first years at the celebration, which was only slightly awkward. It did not take long for Nyssa to coax Rose into joining her in dance when _Stargazer _by Unlawful Sorcerers started playing. It had a fast beat to it, the kind that made you want to move about even if you were perpetually clumsy, and therefore a poor dancer. Scorpius and Albus, however, would not budge from their spots by the back wall, staring curiously at all the pictures, no matter how persistent Nyssa was throughout the celebration.

* * *

Phoenix reached for the black, red-trimmed coat hanging in the small cupboard underneath the stairs. The cupboard was always locked and could be opened by a special key and a combination of spells that only he knew. He took extra precautions these days, checking for himself that it was indeed locked and impenetrable, for his youngest child had managed to find her way into the cupboard twice in her lifetime already. It could not happen again. He so hated the times that it did. Those were unpleasant memories, ones in which his own flesh and blood viewed him as a monster. The guilt that penetrated him looking down upon the trembling child curled up in one of her bedroom corners, screaming when he pointed his wand at her was disagreeable; no, that guilt was not something he wanted to experience once again.

The noise of apparition had him harshly slamming the door shut and casting a flurry or unspoken spells at the lock and around the edges of the door. It followed very shortly, that after he had finished placing the protective spells on the door, the very person he was guarding the contents inside from bounded through the front door. The door hit the wall hard and he knew that it must have created yet another hole. It did not matter for it could be easily fixed with a simple spell, and he did not think to reprimand the girl. He had never reprimanded her. Instead, he indulged her silliest notions. He spoiled her, his youngest child. The apparater left, choosing not to come in, for he heard the noise again.

"Daddy!" She called, running to him in a hurry. The fox she been toting dropped to the floor, landing expertly on its feet. It was much larger than it had been when he sent her off to school last September, he noticed, as the fox trotted off towards the kitchen. "I missed you so much!" She wrapped her arms around his middle, burying her face into his abdomen. In return, he gently caressed her hair, running his large hand over her head. She had grown at most an inch since he'd last seen her. "Why didn't you come to pick me up? You sent Cassia. Cassia!" With the way she repeated the name, grimacing and looking up at him with narrowed, accusing eyes, he knew that her journey home with her older sister must not have been pleasant. "First you tell me not to come home at Christmas and then – then you send Cassia! Don't you love me anymore?" She whined, stepping away from him, a movement that made Phoenix feel distant from her. It was what she wanted, he suspected.

"I love you more than my life," he said simply, amused at her response in the form of an eye roll and a huff.

"What does that even mean?"

He patted her head in a placating way, musing to himself, "You'll understand one day." That day had come for him when he married Lyra. From the moment he saw her, he had told himself he would marry her. Of course he'd heard the rumors, that her bloodline was not so pure anymore. But Lyra herself had asserted that the rumors were false and her blood was clean. He would not have cared either way, though he knew that had she admitted to the claims then he would never have married her. Even now, were she to tell him that her father was a half-breed, which he had suspected more and more over the years, then he would leave her. That was why she would not admit it. And he would not allow her to.

"Where's mom?" Nyssa questioned, peering around him as if her mother were waiting behind her father to jump out in surprise. Alas, she was not there. "Doesn't she want to see me? Does she not love me?"

"She's with your grandfather." Before Nyssa could let the question 'Why' slip from her tongue, as she had already opened her mouth to say, Phoenix cut her off, "Apparently, he's come down with a nasty bout of Magifluenzagrous. No, you can't go visit. It's highly contagious, which is why your mother is not coming home for a few days yet." He did not know if this was entirely true. Every month Lyra disappeared for a few days, giving him different reasons as to why. She was not seeing another man, this he did know, for the vow they had made on their wedding day would have broken had she. The nature of these short excursions from home was unknown to him and he did not pry. He had always got the feeling that it had something to do with those rumors about her father.

Nyssa stuck her lips out, crossed her arms, and turned away from Phoenix, yelling so loudly that all inhabitants of the house, right down to tiniest spider, would have awoke, "Babbitty! Come here now, please!"

With pop just seconds later, a small house elf appeared before her, staring up into the face of its youngest master with those large, bug-like eyes all elves shared. "Little Miss called for Babbitty?"

"Yes, I did," she responded shortly, still refusing to meet the gaze of her father. Each time he shifted so that their eyes met, she would turn further away, until she had gone round in a complete circle and resorted to staring down at the elf.

Babbitty watched this with a curious expression. He had always wondered why his Little Miss treated Master this way. Master did whatever Little Miss asked, just like Babbitty did whatever Master, Madam, or their children asked of him. One time, he had thought to himself that Master was like a house elf to Little Miss. He'd slammed an iron on his hand five times for that thought. Little Miss had asked why his hand was bandaged and he was too ashamed to tell her, so he lied that he'd burnt it while preparing dinner one night. He really did burn his hand for telling such a lie.

"Babbitty, are you listening?"

The little elf was brought back from his revere, and stared up at his Little Miss, batting his eyelids several times. "Babbitty apologizes, Little Miss, for Babbitty was lost in his thought. Please punish me. Babbitty deserves punishment for not listening."

Nyssa's lips retreated back to the normal position on her face, her eyes losing that certain glow of mirth that hung in them as she stared down at the white cloth clothed elf. It saddened her, she supposed, though she did not know why, to see Babbitty ask to be punished. She was used to it, too many times had she witnessed the very same little bow and dipping of his head that he was doing now not to be. It caused a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach though, to see the elf prostrate himself. "Punishment?" She pretended to think of something deadly, smirking down at the elf as she came to a decision. If he was not punished, Babbitty would punish himself more severely than she ever would. She knew this from experience. "You have to keep me company whenever I want until mom gets home. And, whatever I say or do, you'll take my side."

"Yes, Little Miss," the elf bowed twice, before standing up straight once again and only daring once to meet the eyes of the young girl. He had done her a great disservice, his Little Miss. It was only right that she punish him. He was an elf. Elves should not think too much. They should serve their masters. That was an elf's duty. "Was there something else Little Miss was wanting from Babbitty?"

"Yes!" She shouted, a grin replacing her smirk as the stuck a hand in the pocket of her emerald green robe, searching for that piece of parchment Rose had handed her on the train. Before she found it, she'd pulled out two chocolate frog cards and a wrapper for Kelpie Snap; it was a hard green piece of candy with some tangy liquid in the middle. "Do you think you could travel to this address?" She handed him the paper, waiting expectantly for the response of 'yes'.

Except, it was not an immediate 'yes' that she received, but a look of apprehension from the elf, "Is Master saying it is okay for Babbitty to go here?" He looked to Phoenix, who had been quietly watching the interaction between the elf and his daughter. It was when Nyssa was three that Babbitty had come to them. Month after month ticked by of Lyra leaving as she always did for a few days, it became increasingly difficult for Phoenix to make it to work on time or find someone to look after the child. His mother, of course, would always be willing to watch her, but she was getting on in age and he did not want her to be chasing after a swift three year old. The thought of hiring a nanny came to mind and left just as suddenly when he reminded himself that there were no pure-blood nannies to be found.

Sitting at the bar, speaking with his brother about his newly purchased elf over a bottle of Giant's Rum one night, the idea of having an elf of his own around his household came to him. And so he bought the elf, which Nyssa promptly named Babbitty upon first sight, because _Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump_ was her favorite bedtime story at the time. He had no qualms leaving the child with the capable elf, especially knowing that the gardener he employed to upkeep the lawn would be there every day as well.

Wizards and Witches were above elves. His mother and father had told him so. He was not inclined to deny this truth, seeing as he had that the elves were quickly to fall down on bended knee at one glance from a witch or wizard. So it was unfamiliar to him, how his child treated the elf. They had a cordial, friendly relationship, or so it seemed from his perspective. The elf would never call a witch his friend. It would be a great offense to said witch. But he could not help to notice that the elf did not tremble ever so slightly around Nyssa as he did the rest of them, he did not grovel at her feet for forgiveness.

"Where do you want to send Babbitty off to?"

"Rose's house. You met her, remember?" He did. She was a Weasley, the offspring of a blood traitor and muggle-born witch. They had seemed friendly enough, her parents, and he had thought briefly that he would enjoy Nyssa becoming friends with their daughter. The thought was tainted when he learned that her mother was not a pure-blood and her father was from the biggest family of blood traitors you could find in the wizarding world.

"Why do you need to send Babbitty to her? Has something of hers gotten mixed up with yours?" He looked towards the doorway, expecting to see her luggage. Then he remembered that she had run in without any and assumed it must be outside. The door was still wide open. He closed it with a swift motion of his wand, and then muttered 'reparo' while pointing at the hole the handle had created in the wall.

"No, it's to send letters. Owl post will take too long and Rose's house doesn't have wards against house elves like my school, so it'll be faster if I send Babbitty. Can I?" She pleaded, wondering why on earth it was taking him so long to say a simple 'yes'. He was only toying with her, she thought, dragging it out for the fun of it.

He faltered, the enraging thought that his child had befriended a child of such low caliber nagging at him, before calmly asking, "Why would you send Rose Weasley letters?"

"She's my best friend so far. Haven't you been reading my letters?"

He had not been reading them himself, no, but Lyra had read them to him. She must have omitted this newfound knowledge of his intentionally, knowing quite clearly how Phoenix and his family felt about blood traitors or mingling with such filth. He tried to reassure himself that this would not have an adverse affect on Nyssa. That no matter her friend's origins, she would not be swayed to the notion that they were all equal. She was bound to encounter many half-bloods in her lifetime and most unfortunately, muggle-borns. What harm could it do to allow her this one half-blood friend? He could not risk telling her she was no longer allowed to associate with the half-blood witch. That would only make her want to more. Her defiant nature, the one that had spawned in part due to her spoiled upbringing, was not invisible to him.

It was with a forced smile that he responded coolly, "Ah, yes, Rose Weasley. I remember now. You spent the winter holidays at her house. Did you have fun? You can send her letters through Babbitty, if you like." The part about her spending the winter holidays with the Weasley family was an assumption, as Lyra had only told him that Nyssa would be staying with a friend over the holidays. No specific names were given, though he had thought it was perhaps the Malfoys that she stayed with. But from this new information and the way Lyra had avoided his pressing questions as to who it was or what family they belonged to, he knew that it was the Weasley family she had stayed with instead.

"Tons of fun," Nyssa chirped, deciding that she would share a few of her memories at Rose's home with her dad now that he had finally agreed to her request. "We went ice skating on a lake and visited Rose's mom's parents. They're muggles – they were very friendly, kept asking if I was thirsty or hungry. We visited her Uncle George's – he's a funny man – joke shop. And on Christmas day, we ate dinner with her whole family, only her muggle grandparents weren't there. I don't know why, really. But I met Teddy Lupin! I wrote about him too, remember? He's a metamorphmagus. He changed his hair to match mine and called me his sister. I even got a Christmas present from him and his grandmother. Do you want to see it?" She said all this quickly, only stopping for short intervals to breath so that Phoenix could not interrupt her.

"Later," Phoenix replied, ordering Babbitty to go collect Nyssa's luggage from outside and place it in her room. The elf would unpack it without him having to say so, so he did not. "Right now, I want to hear all about your British school." He guided her into the living room, listening to her singsong voice speak of the ceiling enchanted to look like the sky above in the dining hall, moving staircases, hidden doors, and some teacher she called Creepy Creevey.

It was a relief to have his youngest at home to tell him her modified versions of events during her school year, a short retrieve from all the meticulous planning and recruitment he'd been participating in. The time was nearly here. They'd been planning for years, long before his eldest child was born. The black red-trimmed cloak and dated papers hidden in the cupboard under the stairs were the proof. Soon, their leader would emerge. _He_ had assured them of this. It would not be much longer. They had already waited far too long in the shadows for their chance to strike.

There would be retribution. His brother, Nigellus Oswyn Valentine would be avenged. They would bring hell upon those unsuspecting souls that had brought it down upon them.

* * *

**Chapter 8! :) **

**So, I have a few questions, if anyone would be kind enough to answer: I'd like to know if you think it looks better to have the line when transitioning in a chapter or =ooo= as I did on this one? Is Nyssa a realistic character? Do you think Lyra's a pure-blood or has tainted blood, as the rumors say? **

**And, just for fun, who do you think the leader of the mysterious group is?**

**Please review and tell me your thoughts!**


	10. Secrets

**Secrets**

For the last month of her summer break, Nyssa was awoken by the sounds of crying babies (Cassia and her family had moved in so that Lyra could help look after the twins). Cassia, her sister, had given birth to twin girls in late June, much to the vexation of her husband, Caius. He had not wanted more children after their first and feared that his wife would have several like her mother. But that would not happen, Cassia promised, for she wanted no more after the twins. She complained continuously for the first week after the birth of her daughters that it had been painful and she almost died. The latter declaration was untrue, Nyssa told her, because if it were she would not be up and about annoying everyone with her nasally voice all day long. In response, Cassia had made a vicious comment on Nyssa's poor final grade in her Potions class, which prompted Nyssa to bring up Cassia's dismal skills with household spells. The two had not spoken since.

"I didn't cry this much, did I, mom?" She asked one morning whilst sitting at the breakfast table. It wasn't a pleasant morning, in her opinion. The two newborn baby girls were crying in their highchairs between Lyra and Cassia – Caius had already headed to work and Tristan was staying over at a friend's – and could not be consoled. It was disturbing, trying to eat breakfast only to have a loud wail erupt just as you were about to swallow a piece of toast. A person could choke.

Lyra had one hand clutching her wand, which was emitting sparkly little stars in front of the older of the twins – Lyra hoped this would console the baby – and the other stabbing a fork into a sausage so that she might have a chance to eat as well. "It's been so long that I can't really remember," she responded offhandedly, thinking to herself that it was not just that she could not remember but that she had no memories at all of Nyssa's first few months. Whether she cried for her mother's embrace or only cried for seemingly no reason as small babies often do, she did not know.

"Mother can't remember what she wasn't there for," Cassia sniped, her nose turned upwards as she brought a glass of orange juice to her lips and sipped it like they were at the muggle White House dining with foreign leaders and royalty.

Silence ensued at her words, all except for the crying babies. Lyra stopped trying to console the oldest, looking horror-struck towards Cassia. How could she have said such a thing? She knew that Cassia held very little love for Nyssa. Their relationship was one similar to that of Lacerta and Nyssa, only made worse by the fact that Cassia had tried to and sometimes did harm Nyssa when she was small out of spite. But they were sisters still. They shared the same blood, came from the same womb. That Cassia could be so cruel to her sister was something that Lyra could not grasp.

"What's that supposed to mean? I wasn't adopted. Of course mom was there when I was a baby. Or was I adopted?" The idea was absurd. She was not adopted. What pure-blood family would send their child to an orphanage? They would not run the risk of the child being adopted by half-bloods or muggle-borns.

"No, you weren't. You are our daughter." Phoenix asserted, staring at Cassia with a look that Nyssa had only seen once before when Andreus and Ronan stumbled through the front door drunker than Cooter Brown, as her grandmother said while standing beside a fretting Lyra in the living room. They had both been underage at the time and after it was discovered that Andreus had slept in the same bed with some muggle girl, though Nyssa had no idea even to this day what was so wrong about sleeping in the same bed together, the scary expression Phoenix wore now appeared on his face. He sent Nyssa to her room, though she remembered hearing shouting for what seemed like hours before someone came stomping up the stairs and the shower was turned on down the hall.

"Then what did she mean?"

"Don't listen to Cassia's lies. She's just a jealous bitch!"

"Language!" Lyra reprimanded Andreus, who was holding the metal fork in his hand a bit too tightly while staring across the table at a now enraged Cassia. The spoons and forks had stopped hitting the bowls now; all gathered now closely watching the two older siblings shout at each other. Only the twin babies continued to cry. Babies appeared to be very sensitive to the emotions of others. Perhaps that was why they had been crying nonstop since they'd been brought into the Valentine family home, Nyssa thought, because even she had picked up on the odd tension lingering.

"Language, mom? After what she just said, you're going to reprimand me and not her?"

"You always were mom's favorite! You got away with everything!"

"That's not true," Lyra protested, wishing that Andreus and Cassia had taken up their issues with each other somewhere else than the dining room table. She was furious, no doubt, at Cassia for having made such a remark. But she would not scold her in front of Nyssa. That would be like a sign of her admission to Cassia's claims and though it was the truth, she was not ready to tell her youngest that she had neglected her at the very beginning of her life when she needed her mother the most. While she suspected that Andreus was angry that she had said nothing to his older sister, Lyra suspected that his little outburst was partly because of his personal qualms with Cassia. The two had never been close, always bickering about the littlest things. "Please don't fight right now."

But the two siblings must have been possessed by the spirit of rage, because neither paid mind nor acknowledge that they had heard their mother. They continued their argument instead. "Look at how you treat our sister – all of us – like your better."

"Maybe I am better. I don't associate with _filth_,unlike you."

"What sort of filth do I hang around, sister? Tell me. People like you? I'd like to know so that I may scrub myself clean of them. Maybe I should start with this cup," he sneered, wiping at the glass full of milk. Cassia had been the one to set the cups on the table, pouring everyone's preference of breakfast beverage into them.

Raising her voice an octave higher so that it could be heard above the growing cries of her two newborns, Cassia taunted him, "Oh, you think that you've hidden it so well. Don't you? You really think no one knows about your filthy mudblood whores?"

Andreus was glowering now, his eyes narrowed and filled with a rage Nyssa had never before seen on the otherwise always happy, smiling face of her brother. "Did grandmother teach you that word? You always did like to copy her. Grandmother liked to do the crosswords in the newspaper, and then, suddenly, so did you. Right?" He took a short pause, dropping the fork from his hand so that he could move it towards his jeans. "My filthy mudblood whores, you said. Need me to wash out that dirty mouth?" In a swift movement of limbs, he had gone from a sitting to standing position and was now pointing his wand at Cassia, who was not slow about mimicking his actions.

"Enough!" Phoenix roared, banging his fists down upon the table – it shook violently – as he stood, the chair he was sitting in falling backwards onto the floor with a loud thud. He had often had to break up fights between Andreus and Cassia when the two were in their teenage years and beyond, but never had they pointed their wands at one another. Family did not point their wands at one another, not even playfully, he had taught them. How was he meant to protect them if they wanted to harm each other?

"Put your wands on the table," he demanded in a voice so deep and stentorian that Nyssa felt the need to cover her ears. She did, pressing her index fingers over her tragus so that the rumbling sound in her ears was now louder than her daddy's voice.

As their father had commanded, Cassia and Andreus put their wands on the table, watching each other as both lowered their hands and then dropped the thin sticks to the tabletop. "Accio," Phoenix shouted when they had moved their hands away from the wands, pointing his own white-wooded wand in the direction of Cassia's wand first and then Andreus'. He pocketed them along with his wand, and said, "Follow me." Andreus and Cassia followed him out of the room, to his study, no doubt. Nyssa had only been called in his study once and that was only because her daddy wanted to show her some old family pictures his father had found stuffed away in one of the guest bedroom closets.

* * *

A sandy-blond haired girl of twenty-four stalled at the door leading to the President of The Wizarding United States of America's office. She had just been appointed Junior Assistant to the President yesterday after Margaret Redding, who previously held this title, went one step too far on a potion that had yet to be identified and landed herself in Melcinda's Hospital for Maladies indefinitely. So far, the job was turning out to be much more than she could handle. There was so much paperwork, much more than she'd had to handle in the Agency of International Magical Peacekeeping where she'd been a lowly assistant to a portly man named John Neviers.

Aside from the paperwork, yesterday, on her very first day, the President had come in looking as if he'd just been told Voldemort was back again, and then he'd left shortly afterwards looking much worse than he had when he came in. She'd heard a few whispers here and there that someone he knew had died.

So it was a surprise when he returned to work today - hours late - with a determined expression, strode into his office and loudly pulled the door to a close. Thirty minutes later, an elderly woman with long, striking emerald green hair rushed past her desk. She had half a mind to stop the woman and ask her if her hair was natural or dyed, but knew the answer was the latter. No one could be born with that hair color.

She now stood outside the President's office, paperwork clutched in her hands, listening attentively, although at first unwillingly, to the raised voices in the office.

=ooo=

Inside the office, which was painted a royal shade of blue and adorned with assorted instruments Everett Avery, current President of The Wizarding United States or America, sometimes used to waste away time, stood a very tired, yet alert Everett. He was wrinkly – his dark brown hair was peppered with white – and his skin lined, but carried himself with a regal air. Across from him stood the emerald haired woman; her arms crossed over her chest and clear blue eyes narrowed at Everett.

"There was no need for you to come all the way here, Alcina. I will take care of our son." Everett was leaning calmly against his desk, his eyes fixated on the emerald haired woman. They had never been married, she had too much of an independent streak to allow that.

"You zink I will leave him 'ere? Zere are dark powers at work. I will not take the chance zat 'arm may come to him." Her voice was crisp and clear, and very heavily accented when it came to the English 'th' sound. It was not for this matter that she had made the journey from her home in southern France at Beauxbaton's Academy of Magic originally. She came to visit her goddaughter, but was diverted from this task once she'd heard whisper in One More, a small bar named after the owner's brother (he always wanted 'one more'), of five deaths in one night.

The victims were a married half-blood couple found at home, a muggle-born male outside a pub, and one pure-blood female with her muggle-born boyfriend lying abandoned in the woods. All had no obvious signs of an attack. All wore expressions of fright, eyes open wide. The pure-blood and her muggle-born boyfriend were found with their hands clasped, as if both had been struck at the same time. There was no question as to what killed all five. It could be nothing else but the killing curse. The half-blood couple that was been murdered were both old friends of Alcina and Everett's. They'd gone to school together, Rémi Darrieux, Lyra, and her. She had been the one to introduce the blonde-haired Rémi with roguish good looks to Rachel Temple, the shy and quiet dull brown-haired girl with a heart big enough to embrace the world. And when Alcina had landed her dream job at Beauxbaton's, it had been Rachel and Rémi who'd offered to care for her and Everett's son.

Everett sighed, massaging his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. She'd always been difficult, the love of his life. But she was not worried for an unfounded reason now, as she had often been when Julien was first born. There were dark powers at work, like she said. He knew that. It had been causing him trouble ever since he'd taken office one year ago. The previous President had warned him of a group, one that was supposedly acting on leftover sentiment from the time of Voldemort's terror. American witches and wizards told their children that Voldemort had not affected the states and that was a lie. At the same time that Britain was going through all their troubles with the man, his supporters in the states were causing trouble as well. It was a nice delusion though, for the children, to believe that European affairs had no impact on Americans; that they would be safe in the states at all times.

"He will be safe," he assured, "I will make sure of it."

Alcina scoffed, unsatisfied with this response. It seemed that Everett did not realize what was truly happening, what was going to occur. You could not guarantee anyone's safety in the years that were to come. "You will not be able to protect him so easily. Why do you zink Lyra was not so against Nyssa going to 'ogwarts?"

"And will you tell him that? That he and everyone he knows is in grave danger from something he cannot see in front of him?"

"He does not need –"

"You would uproot him from the only life he's ever known! From his friends! And take him to France. France! What will you say to him? Hello, Julien, I'm your mother and you'll be living with me from now on? He doesn't even know you!" He immediately regretted his words once he'd finished and seen the crestfallen look upon Alcina's face. There was no need to have said that her own son did not know her. She knew it. Julien did not know either of his parents well, only having communicated through letters, receiving Birthday presents from faces he'd only seen in photographs all these years.

"I only want to protect him," Alcina mumbled, running her fingers over the oval pendant on her chest. It was a gift Julien had sent her when he was still young and believed his mommy was coming back for him soon. He stopped sending gifts two years after that, having come to the realization that he had been left behind with his parent's friends so that they could pursue careers.

"So do I," Everett responded, removing his hand from his forehead to let it fall back down to his side. He was always saying the wrong thing. It was part of the reason, he thought, that Alcina did not want to marry him even after so many years and his promises of giving her freedom. His quick temper and harsh words reminded her of her father, an alcoholic in his later years that hit her mother more than just once or twice. "Maybe it would be better for him to go to France with you," he admitted, though was quick to add, "But it should be up to Julien, don't you agree?"

"Oui."

* * *

_Dear Nyssa,_

_In your last letter, you wrote about the five deaths that recently occurred in the United States. I asked Father about it over supper last night and he became rather silent. He said he'd heard about it though, at work. And then, would you believe that just two nights ago there were attacks here. Two muggles died. The Daily Prophet said it was the killing curse. Albus' dad was at the scene, so I suspect he might know more. I'm going to write him about it. It's strange though, that these killings would happen so close to each other. I hope this doesn't have any negative effect on us going back to Hogwarts in September._

_Wishing you the best,_

_Scorpius Malfoy_

_=ooo=_

_Dear Nyssa,_

_I can't believe that someone killed all those people! Mum and dad are worried, you know. They won't say anything if I ask, but I think these killings remind them of the time when Voldemort was still around. Have you heard about the two muggles that were murdered here? It's too much of a coincidence. James says something bad is happening that our parents want to keep from us. What do your parents say? _

_With Love,_

_Rose Weasley_

_=ooo=_

_Dear Nyssa,_

_I'll tell you what I've told Scorpius: I don't know anything about what's happening. Dad won't talk about it and mum switches the subject whenever James or I bring it up. She says we'll frighten Lily with that sort of talk. I've asked Teddy, but even he won't talk about it. He's arguing with Victoire right now, by the way. I hope they don't end it. Your house elf called me Master Potter. Can you please ask him not to? It sounds odd._

_Write soon,_

_Albus Potter_

_=ooo=_

_Dear Nyssa, _

_I've read the news, yes, but the topic has not been brought up at home. I think it's someone that does not like muggles and muggle-borns is doing the killings. We don't need to worry then. How has your summer been so far? Are your sister's babies still living with you? I hope you've looked over your books for next year already. It's always good to be prepared beforehand. _

_Warm regards,_

_Asher Zabini_

_=ooo=_

_Dear Nyssa,_

_Have you heard about the killings? It's scary. Mum says not to worry, but I do. I'll be glad when we're back at Hogwarts. It's one of the safest places in the world, you know. We'll be safe there. I can't wait to be back. See you soon._

_Take care,_

_Olivia Browne_

After the news of the five killings in the states had spread like wildfire, Nyssa had contacted her friends and learned, to her surprise, that they'd had some killings of their own. That made it a total of seven people – living, breathing humans – murdered by the killing curse over the summer. It had been unexpected, Olivia sending her a letter. They were roommates, but the two did not spend a great deal of time together outside of the dorm. She wondered if Olivia had sent similar letters to their other roommates, or if she had only confided her fear to her.

She thought about Rose's letter most, asking her what her own parents had to say about the recent deaths. Not much, in truth. Her father had asked her mother on the day it was printed in the newspaper if the couple found murdered in their home were old friends of her? Somberly, her mother had replied that yes, they were old friends; the husband had gone to school with her. He, Nyssa's godmother, and Lyra had all been close friends.

Perhaps Alcina would tell her more. She was never one to shy away from giving her opinion on matters. Nyssa was going to see her today. Her mom was going to drop her off at Tally's Inn, where Alcina was staying, before heading off to her brother's house to help him set up a room for their parents. Her mother's parents had decided to move in with her uncle after her grandpa's recent illness. They were getting old, they said, and wouldn't last much longer now. Nyssa found the though upsetting.

She managed to finish writing a reply letter to nearly everyone – the return letters to Asher and Albus were all that remained – before she left. Again, she traveled by means of side-along apparition, though she had complained hundreds of times to both her parents by now of how much she hated it. It felt like a huge weight was pressing down on your entire being and you could not breath in the few split seconds that you were traveling. They ended up outside the tavern, which was brimming with several other witches and wizards pointing at newspapers in groups talking in hushed voices. Her mom weaved through the crowd, bringing her inside the rowdy inn. It was loud inside and there was a strong smell of alcohol in the air. Several witches and wizards sat at the bar drinking, and Nyssa watched a short old man fall backwards off one of the stools, causing her to giggle. She was quickly dragged upstairs, away from all the drinking and noise, by her mom.

Up two flights of stairs and at the end of a hallway, they found Room 23, the room Alcina had said she was staying in. Lyra knocked twice, glancing behind her as if suspecting a crazy person wielding a knife to lynch either her or Nyssa at any moment. The door swung open moments after Lyra knocked, the blue eyes of Alcina greeting the two of them. She invited Lyra to stop inside for a short while before she headed off, but Lyra refused and bid her goodbye, telling Nyssa that she would be by to pick her up later.

Inside the room, Nyssa was puzzled to find an older brown haired boy with blues eyes staring at her. He had his arms crossed over his chest and looked very grumpy. "Who is she?" He seethed, jerking his head in Nyssa's direction.

Alcina placed her hands on Nyssa's shoulders, calmly replying, "This is Nyssa Valentine, my goddaughter. Nyssa, zis grumpy young man," said boy scoffed, "is my son, Julien Avery."

Nyssa gasped. "You have a son?" She had no idea. Never had her godmother told her that she had a son. Did her mom even know? Maybe it was a big secret, Alcina Mizell's hidden child.

"So I'm a secret then?" The boy was quick to question, venom in the tone of his voice. He had paid no thought to his mom and dad for years, until the couple that had been substitute parents for most of his life was murdered and his biological parents showed up on his doorstep. It was actually one of the neighbor's doorsteps, because the home he'd grown up in was now a crime scene and no one without the proper authority was allowed to go in.

"No," Alcina lied easily, "I only zought zat Nyssa might be jealous."

"I'm not jealous," Nyssa insisted. Why should she be? She'd actually always wished that Keenan or Alcina had children. Their children would have been her close friends, though she wasn't sure now, looking at the angry Julien, that she could ever become friends with him. "I have too many siblings to be jealous. You could have told me."

"Oh, does she actually write to you and visit? Give you a kiss on the cheek and a hug round the middle? She treats someone else's child better than her own," Julien spat, staring at the ugly yellow-painted wall. Had he been able to produce fire with glares, the wall would have been burnt to crisps.

Nyssa did not like the way he was speaking of her godmother. It made her angry. Who was he, this random boy that did not even know her, to speak about her that way. Even if he was justified in being angry because Alcina had not been a good mother to him, he had no right to go talking about her that way. "Don't talk about Alcina that way!"

"She's my mom! I can talk about her how I like!" He roared, jumping to his feet and turning his glare upon the younger girl.

"She's _my _godmother! And I say you can't!"

"You two stop right now," Alcina ordered with a stern expression on her face. She looked every bit the Professor that she was at this moment. Her friends had often joked that she would be kind to students, but her students would disagree as they often called her the 'She-Devil' behind her back.

The two children went silent, averting their eyes from one another. "Zat's better," Alcina commented, her cheery disposition back. She walked towards a rickety side table shoved against the wall beside the left side of the bed where ten or so bottles of Cream Soda were laid down. Grabbing two, she walked back to the two children, handing one off to Julien first, who snatched it from her rather than gently taking it, and then Nyssa while she ushered the girl further into the room and made her sit down in a chair by the dirty window.

"How has school been? Julien goes to Byzovion," she said to Nyssa and then to Julien, "and Nyssa goes to 'Ogwarts."

"It's Bythovion," Julien corrected. He bitterly thought that she should have been able to learn to pronounce English better by her age, though he did feel a slight pang of guilt for being so rude, knowing as he did that she had an accent. But it wasn't enough guilt for him to apologize. She deserved this kind of treatment from him. It was her fault he was so angry.

"Do you know Tristan Valentine? He's my brother," Nyssa asked. She had thought to make a comment on his correcting Alcina's pronunciation, but bit her tongue – literally – and did not.

"He's a year below me," he replied off-handedly. It wasn't that he did not have anything else to say about the boy, more so that he had too much. Tristan Valentine was too conceited and proud of his 'pure-blood' lineage. He acted like he was better than others and constantly demeaned the muggle-born students or those he deemed 'blood traitors' for hanging around them. In the past school year he'd managed to bully one muggle-born enough that he left school, saying that he no longer wished to be a wizard. He thought he ruled the school, Tristan Valentine, because his ancestor had been a co-founder. But he wasn't about to say all this to the boy's sister, even if it would give him vindictive pleasure.

"Julien likes, what was it, dear?"

"Alchemy," Julien said, for once not sounding as if he wanted to rip someone's head off.

Alcina smiled, remembering that Everett had once said this was his favorite class at school as well. They were alike, father and son, though both had only met three times so far that Julien was able to remember. She would not tell Julien though, that he was like his father, because when Everett had made the comment that Julien looked like he did at his age, the boy had become upset. "Zat is similar to Potions, I zink. Julien could help you zen, Nyssa."

"No thanks."

Julien chuckled, "You're lousy at something so simple?"

"It is not!" Nyssa cried indignantly. That was what everyone seemed to think so far, that Potions was an easy class. It really wasn't, even Professor Sawyer had assured her of that. Some people just had a natural talent for it and that was why they say it as easy, but others had to work hard and actually learn to have talent in potions-making. To avoid anymore commentary on the subject, she asked Alcina what her parents had said little about, "Mom said that the witch and wizard found at home were friends of yours. They were murdered by the killing curse, weren't they? That's what the papers say. And my friends from Hogwarts have all said that two muggles were murdered in England not long after. Do you know who did it? Why?"

Perhaps she had asked too many questions, but Alcina's face had gone pale and Julien looked lost, staring down at his hands lying in his lap. Julien was the first to say something in a very shaky, quiet voice, "They were my parents, sort of, the couple. There was no reason for anyone to kill them. No reason at all."

"Ze people zat murdered zem so heartlessly are not good people." Alcina forced the words from her mouth. It was hard, because her throat suddenly felt very tight. She wanted to hug Julien in this moment but was too afraid the he would recoil at her touch. "Zat is what you need to know." This was not true. Nyssa needed to know that people around her were not safe. But Alcina could not tell her that the people she was meant to trust the most were not good people.

Nyssa nodded, not satisfied with this answer. It wasn't what she wanted to hear. Not even close. But it was obviously a touchy subject and she should never have asked. That much she realized. Still, she wanted to ask more. She wanted to know what was happening and not be left in the dark, like all the other children. Even her older siblings, she was sure, knew what was happening when she didn't. Tristan, maybe not, but the others definitely did. It was evident in the way they came over to visit more often than usual this summer and how her dad often went to see them.

It just wasn't fair.

* * *

**Chapter 9! XD And here we finally see something sinister starting up, yes?**

**Do you think Alcina knows who did the murdering specifically? If not, Everett, the President? What will Julien do, go with his mom to France or stay behind in the states with his dad? Did you picture Tristan as the type of boy he is at school on the way he acts at home? Many people are keeping secrets from Nyssa. **

**Please review and tell me your thoughts!**


End file.
